Philip Hollobone: LED lighting is super-efficient. It uses just 5 per cent. of the wattage of a conventional light bulb; it generates very little heat, which means that it reduces fire risk in applications; and it contains no mercury, which means that it is safer to dispose of. May I urge the Minister to have discussions with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this issue? Can she also advise the House what the low-carbon business innovation unit within her Department is doing to promote this technology?

Joan Ruddock: The Department for Transport has been working with lighting manufacturers to look carefully at how to include low-energy traffic lights in its pursuance of a low-energy transport strategy. I am not, of course, able to tell my hon. Friend the extent to which it may or may not have considered LEDs, but I am more than happy to have a discussion on this point with my opposite numbers.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about London Array. I would point out that we have recently overtaken Denmark as the world leader in offshore wind, despite the difficulties that he mentions. We are pleased that Masdar has said that it will invest in the London Array project, and we are keeping closely in touch with investors on issues such as the cost of turbines and the exchange rate. We agree that we need to ensure that the project goes ahead.

Peter Lilley: Can the Secretary of State tell me what proportion of the cost of household and industrial electricity bills is required to meet the cost of subsidising our renewable energy commitment?

Mark Lazarowicz: Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend the launch of a report on renewable energy, and one of the points made by the industry people at the launch was that there are still problems obtaining consents for renewable energy in rural areas, where—without making a political point—Labour is not the dominant party. Does my right hon. Friend accept that we have to do something about the way in which, especially in rural areas, valuable renewable energy projects are too often delayed by obstructionism on the part of unsympathetic local authorities?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Those who say that they are in favour of renewable energy should practise what they preach. In a way, we should be grateful to the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) who said, on the question of offshore wind:
	"I think frankly you will find different views among colleagues—colleagues are more divided on onshore wind than nuclear power."
	That speaks to an important question: if we are in favour of renewable energy, we should make sure that it happens throughout the country, including at local authority level.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman raises two separate issues. On the immediate issue of connection to the grid, I took powers in the Energy Act 2008 that are available if Ofgem and the national grid fail to sort out the issue of connection. We hope that they will make an offer on 450 MW that would come from connecting various projects to the grid. The report that he mentions is an important contribution to how we set up the system of regulation to ensure that we have the smart grid that we need.

Barry Sheerman: Does my hon. Friend agree that energy from waste is a proven technology that can deliver a great deal in terms of energy for our country? Is he aware that he must have the courage to face up to cowardly local authorities that will not make decisions? Planning stops everything and PFI, at the moment, is stopping everything. Will he be courageous and lead so that we can have some energy from waste and can make a good resource more valuable?

Edward Miliband: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I hope that I will live up to his recommendation to be courageous. In the civil service, that is not always a compliment, but I think that my hon. Friend is right to say that one should be courageous on these issues. Energy from waste can play an important part in the energy mix. It is a way in which waste that would not otherwise be used for good purposes can be used to heat our homes and to make a real difference to our energy needs. I agree that this needs to be pursued urgently.

Malcolm Moss: At a recent planning appeal in my constituency, the Government inspector overturned a decision by the local planning authority to reject a single wind turbine application. Given the fact that Fenland district council has one of the best records for wind farm development in the whole country, where does that leave local democracy and the wishes of local people?

Edward Miliband: I cannot comment on the individual case, because I obviously do not know the details. However, let me say more generally to the hon. Gentleman that I think that all of us in this House who believe in renewable energy and who believe in the part that renewable energy can play have a responsibility to do all we can to encourage wind farms—[Hon. Members: "Waste of time."] Some Opposition Members say that they are a waste of time, but I profoundly disagree. To be completely honest, I am afraid that that attitude will get us nowhere. If we preach renewable energy at a national level, we need to encourage it at a local level.

Simon Hughes: If we are to have the secure energy future that the Government want and to meet the climate change targets that the Government have set out, as well as having a future for coal with carbon capture and storage, does the Secretary of State accept that we need a renewables energy industry in which investors can have real confidence that they will be able to find the billions of pounds that yesterday's report said we needed? That needs the Secretary of State to co-ordinate with the Treasury and those responsible for planning so that everybody seeks to deliver that goal, which has to be at the front and the centre of the Government's energy policy for the future.

Edward Miliband: I agree. Let me take the opportunity to welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench, as this is our first interchange at Question Time. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge on these issues.
	I agree that co-ordination is necessary. That is why we passed the Planning Act 2008 to encourage the speeding-up of renewable technology and renewable energy projects. That is why we moved on the feed-in tariff, which I know that the hon. Gentleman is rightly enthusiastic about. The credit crunch is also a concern, and I have recently returned from the United States, where they are facing the same issues. No sector can be immune from that. It is an added complication to the issues that we face and that is why we are urgently considering how existing schemes, such as the working capital scheme, can be used by small and medium-sized companies and why we are also considering whether other measures are necessary.

Gregory Barker: Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the American Congress that only by tackling climate change could we create the millions of new green jobs that we needed. Yet back in the real world here not only are we flagging in our efforts to meet our 2020 renewables targets, but E.ON UK has been quoted as saying that the economics of the London Array project are on a knife edge. In addition, UBS is predicting a 20 per cent. decline in investment in new wind capacity this year, and Siemens has seen a 28 per cent. year-on-year decline in renewables orders. However, instead of seeing them drive real job-creating change now, all that we see from this exhausted Government is the same old dither and delay. So will the Secretary of State say how many new green jobs his climate change and renewables policies will create this year?

Edward Miliband: Thousands of green jobs will created. The kind of attitude displayed by the hon. Gentleman, who knows that Conservative councils throughout the country oppose renewable energy and wind turbines, does not speak well for him. I have said that no sector is immune from the credit crunch, which poses added difficulties. I have also said that we are looking at what we can do, but the point that I would gently make to him is that the Government are acting in relation to the credit crunch, whereas all we hear from the Opposition is "do nothing." The £20 billion working capital scheme is precisely designed to get finance to the companies that need it. Instead of carping from the sidelines, he should support the measures that the Government are taking on recapitalising the banks and encouraging lending.

Mike O'Brien: As North sea production declines over the coming decades, we will import more gas. That means that, for energy security reasons, we will need significantly to increase our storage capacity. National Grid's recent "Ten Year Statement" identifies 17 commercial gas storage projects in various stages of development. Another was announced last week. If all those projects go ahead, the UK's gas storage capacity could increase to some 20 per cent. of current annual demand levels by around 2020.

Ann Cryer: I am sure that my hon. Friend is well aware that Centrica has announced one of the biggest gas storage projects in the UK. Given the present economic situation, is my hon. and learned Friend confident that such a massive project, which will require equally massive amounts of funding, is going to go ahead?

Mike O'Brien: Yes, I am confident that we will get a number of these investments going ahead. Storage projects are major, long-term strategic investments for companies, and decisions about them are never taken lightly. The very fact that Centrica is seeking to bring forward that £1.2 billion project demonstrates that, although current economic conditions are, of course difficult, investors are taking that strategic view of the market. As I said, there are 17 other projects at varying stages of development. Gas suppliers have a legal obligation to supply gas on a daily basis, and the new storage capacities will enable them to have some insurance for that. We cannot be complacent: apart from the steps that we have already taken to ensure a supportive consenting regime for projects, we have also been working with the European Investment Bank and the gas storage industry to ensure that, if projects experience difficulty raising finance, the people behind them are aware of the facilities available at the EIB.

Mike O'Brien: Well, of course to those who are not connected to gas, gas storage will be of limited benefit. We need to make sure that we create gas links that enable people to get on to gas. Across the country, and certainly in my area, communities are coming together, and local authorities have co-ordinated applications by communities to get connected to gas. That has worked very successfully. A number of companies are prepared to work with local authorities to do that. As for the hon. Gentleman's area, I recommend that he talks to his local authority and the companies, and gets some of those projects going.

Elliot Morley: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is a real need for increased gas storage, not least because when prices were very high due to problems with Russian supply in Europe, gas from the Norwegian gas fields came straight into the UK and into the European market. An interconnector can be a good thing, but there has to be a genuine two-way process. Is he convinced that the European market is properly liberalised, and does not have protectionism, so that when we want to import gas from Europe, we can do so?

Mike O'Brien: The straight answer is no, I am not convinced that we have yet got a European market that is properly liberalised, but the European Commission is responding to concerns that the Government have repeatedly raised with it about the fact that we need change in Europe. We strongly support, and indeed have been a motivating force for, the work that is going on in the Commission to move forward EU energy liberalisation. There is a lot of work to do on the issue, but let me add that, as my right hon. Friend indicates, the issue is not just about gas storage. Companies have delivered a 400 per cent. increase in Britain's import capacity over the past 10 years. Pipelines including the interconnector, which he mentioned, have been expanded. There are new pipelines, such as the Langeled from Norway and the Balgzand-Bacton line from the Netherlands. The capacity for liquefied natural gas from the Isle of Grain has tripled to 9.8 million tonnes per annum. Britain's gas import capacity is equivalent to 120 per cent. of our annual gas consumption.

Mike O'Brien: It is not about how many days worth of gas there are. The amount of gas in storage at a given point cannot meaningfully be assessed in terms of days. Stored gas is not used on its own to meet UK demand in any way. The North sea gas reserves put the UK in a position unlike that of other countries. Yes, we need gas storage, and we will need to increase the amount of storage as our imports increase, but we still have a substantial amount of gas coming from the North sea. That means that we do not need quite the amount of storage capacity that other countries do, although we will need to improve gas storage capacity in future as North sea gas depletes, and imports rise.

Mike O'Brien: That is a stunning statement the week after Centrica announced a £1.2 billion proposal to create the second-biggest gas storage facility at the old gas field in Baird in the North sea. We hope that that will come on stream from 2013. There are 17 other projects, too. That is one of the main areas for us, and the Government are setting out their priority of bringing gas storage on board. Let me be clear. The hon. Gentleman's claims that we were suddenly about to run out of gas take no account of the fact that the Norwegian gas fields were pumping vast amounts of imports into the country. We were therefore able to manage successfully and capably the issues that arose as a result of the recent cold snap and the Russia-Ukraine dispute.

Joan Humble: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that just two years ago, a proposal to develop a massive underground gas storage facility at Preesall just outside my constituency was overwhelmingly rejected by all the local people, both local councils, both local MPs, the planning inspector and, indeed, the Government, because of major concerns about the safety of the local population? I cannot ask my hon. and learned Friend to comment on the revised proposal that has been submitted, but will he assure me that the safety and security of our gas supply is not put ahead of the safety and security of our people?

Mike O'Brien: It is always the case that these issues need to be looked at in the round, to ensure that all the factors that need to be taken into account are taken into account. I am sure that that will happen as part of the process of assessing any application. It is always essential to ensure that communities are safe, but it is also important that as a country, for the protection of our energy security and our energy supply, we have sufficient gas storage. That is why the Government have made it one of their key priorities to bring on gas storage capacity in this country.

Stephen Hammond: Notwithstanding the Minister's synthetic anger in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), and as the rest of the world measures gas storage in days and the UK at last measure had 15 days, as against more than 100 for France and Germany, will the Minister agree to make regular statements to the House about the number of days of gas storage that this country has?

Michael Clapham: The volume of gas that we have stored is bound to impact on domestic gas bills, but may I tell my hon. and learned Friend another reason for the increase in domestic gas bills? It happens when the units of gas in underestimated bills are aggregated together in a catch-up bill and charged at the tariff that applies at the time of the catch-up bill. That results, of course, in an increased gas bill. Not many people know that the companies will recalculate, if requested. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that when a catch-up bill is sent to a consumer, there should be a note on the bill informing the consumer that they can ask for a recalculation?

Lyn Brown: What recent discussions he has had with Ministerial colleagues on improving the energy efficiency of houses by 2020; and if he will make a statement.

Charles Hendry: The Prime Minister talks about new green jobs, but is not the reality far removed from his rhetoric? In September, he said that 6 million homes would be insulated in the next three years, but industry says that that figure will now be just 4 million; the Government said that 1 million homes would have cavity wall insulation in the current financial year, but the real figure is fewer than 600,000; and instead of 150,000 new green jobs in this crucial area, manufacturers of energy conservation materials are cutting back their output and putting their workers on to short time. Will the Secretary of State accept our proposals, endorsed by the Energy Saving Trust, to offer every household a comprehensive range of energy-efficient measures, with the cost recouped over time through their bills? It works in the States, so why not here?

Edward Miliband: One of my Department's key responsibilities is to work with others towards an international agreement on climate change. This morning, I returned from talks in the United States with representatives of the new Administration, as well as Members of the House and Senate. It is clear from my discussions that there is an important shared agenda with the new Administration for a greening of the economy and for a global deal on climate change in December, with the maximum ambition in that agreement based on the scientific evidence on climate change. I look forward to working with President Obama's team in the period ahead, and I believe that all Members of this House will welcome the fact that we can now genuinely say that there is US leadership on climate change.

Andrew George: Of course, we look forward to that.
	What can Ministers do about a problem experienced by low-income households in my constituency when seeking the benefit of the laudable Warm Front scheme, which is caused by the way in which contractors are selected? The benefit of the grant available is often more than negated because of the monopoly situation in which those contractors find themselves and the extortionate charges that are levied for the schemes that are brought forward.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about getting maximum value for money under the Warm Front scheme. Let me deal with his question in two parts. First, the maximum grant under Warm Front—we discussed this with the Select Committee last week—has not been increased for a number of years. We want to increase it and we will come forward with proposals shortly. On the wider question of value for money as regards Warm Front, the studies that we have seen suggest that contractors' rates are reasonable when compared with others. However, we continue to monitor that. We want more value for money from the Warm Front scheme, and we are determined to ensure that we get it.

Mike O'Brien: I certainly want to work with the industry, as do the Government as a whole, to ensure that we maintain the jobs that we have in the North sea. We are seeing some areas of decline in production, but there is still a lot of interest in oil and gas in the North sea. Because we have prospects of offshore wind generation and onshore wind generation—certainly in Scotland—there are prospects for significant expansions of our energy production, and we want to ensure that that happens. We want to work closely during the present difficult economic period to ensure that jobs are protected in so far as they can be.

David Chaytor: What assessment has the Secretary of State made about the possibility of new nuclear build following the banking crisis? Given that banks are reluctant to provide mortgages for people to buy one-bedroomed flats, does he think it likely that anyone will offer the finance to construct a new nuclear power station in the immediate future? Will he continue to resist the arguments of those who want to rig the carbon market in order to provide a hidden subsidy for new nuclear?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend raises an important point, which allows me to say this about the credit crunch. The larger companies—we have three consortiums that want to build new nuclear—have been less affected by the credit crunch, as far as we can tell. That is not to say that it does not have any effect, but it has had less of an effect on those companies. My sense is that they will still come forward with their plans for new nuclear—we have heard no views otherwise.
	My hon. Friend is also right on the question of subsidies. We have said that we are not going to subsidise new nuclear. We are breaking down the barriers to new nuclear in a number of different ways, but I do not think that it is right to subsidise it. It is also right to ensure—as we did in the Energy Act 2008—that waste costs are paid for by the companies that come forward. New nuclear needs to be part of the energy mix and the plans will be taken forward.

Julie Kirkbride: Further to the exchanges that took place on gas storage, the Minister will be aware that there is limited geological scope for gas storage in the UK. How confident is he, in the light of the question asked by the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), that the planning process will deliver all the gas storage sites, bearing in mind that the industry does not think that we have got enough even if they all go ahead?

Edward Miliband: It is good to reply to another Member who has a family connection in the House.
	On energy prices, I do not think that at this stage a referral to the Competition Commission is the right way to go, because it would not be brief and quick. It would take a long time. That is the experience of referrals to the Competition Commission. I believe that the better way to go is what we are doing, which is pressing the energy companies to reduce their prices and pass on the price cuts, and introducing more transparency through the work of Ofgem, which published its first quarterly report on the connection between wholesale and retail prices earlier this month.
	The hon. Gentleman's general point that we need price cuts to be passed on to consumers is completely right. That needs a combination of tough regulation, consumers associations making their voice clear and the Government doing the same. That is what we intend to do.

Nicholas Winterton: If she will bring forward proposals for amendments to Standing Orders to incorporate the remit of the Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee within that of the Procedure Committee and to stipulate that the Procedure Committee shall be chaired by a Back-Bench hon. Member.

Nicholas Winterton: Does not the Deputy Leader of the House accept that changes to the processes and procedures of the House are best devised and put forward by Back-Bench Members of the House, and not by a Committee led by a Cabinet Minister? Does he not believe that the changes would carry more weight and have more support right across the House if the Modernisation Committee were merged with the Procedure Committee, and if the Procedure Committee, with those new functions, were chaired by a Back Bencher—preferably an Opposition Back Bencher?

Chris Bryant: It certainly is the Winterton show today, and it is a delight to be asked a question by the hon. Gentleman, who is the longest-standing member of the Modernisation Committee. If that does not show that the House has a sense of irony, I do not know what does. I do not entirely agree with him, however. This Government were elected on the prospectus of being able to deliver modernisation of the House, which is why we set up the Committee in the first place. Once the Committee has completed this last issue, the Leader of the House and I will look at ways of bringing forward further measures on modernisation. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one issue, however. The work of the Select Committees should, on the whole, be the embodiment of Back-Bench opinion.

Chris Bryant: I think that I have now heard three bids for the chairmanship of that Committee, but I have to say that none of them are from the most modernising Members of the House. I am not at all surprised that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House agreed with a report that she had written—she is always entirely consistent in these matters. On the right hon. Gentleman's point about Back Benchers and Select Committees, I would throw back to him the fact that the Procedure Committee has done significant and important work; I am appearing before it next week on the matter of written parliamentary questions, and I know that when that report comes forward, it will contain interesting material for the whole House to digest.

Governance of Britain

Chris Bryant: The House has agreed proposals for regional Select Committees and Grand Committees, which were among the issues raised in "The Governance of Britain" Green Paper. In addition, we have today published detailed plans for strengthening Parliament's role in scrutinising Government expenditure, aligning Budgets, estimates and accounts.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend, with whom I have waged many campaigns from the Back Benches, is an ardent supporter of the independence of this House and the significant role it must play in holding the Government to account. As I have just said, we have published another command paper today on the question of how better to align estimates and Budgets so that the House can do a better job of looking at expenditure. I do not think that this Government have run out of steam on modernising this House or on ensuring that we have a constitution that is fit for purpose.

Mark Harper: The Deputy Leader of the House mentioned regional Select Committees as something to be proud of, but is it not the case that the Government are pushing them through when there is no consensus in the House and the appointments to those Committees consist only of Labour MPs at a cost of more than £1 million of taxpayers' money? Does that not make a mockery of modernisation, demonstrating, as the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) said, that the sooner we get a change of Government to restore the powers of this House, the better?

David Heath: I was interested to hear what the Deputy Leader of the House had to say about his command paper and I wonder whether it amounts to the proposals that the Leader of the House said only last week that she would like to talk about with me and the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan)—with no such discussions yet taking place. Is it not the case that, in reality, no progress on proper modernisation of the House's procedures has been made? Indeed, the Government have been retrogressive in their increasing use of bullying programme motions, reductions in time so that Bills are not properly scrutinised and their inability to organise our business to the satisfaction of all Members of the House rather than that of the Executive?

Chris Bryant: Conservative Members should not be agreeing with the hon. Gentleman, who is a very unfair gentleman. Last week, he called for proposals on better scrutiny of Government expenditure, and we have today put forward some suggestions on how we might achieve that. We are happy to consult on them; it is merely a command paper, so legislation would not necessarily have to follow. It would be nicer of him—in fact, it would be nice if he was nice occasionally—if he came before the House to say thank you for the changes we are proposing that will make for better and more effective scrutiny of the Government.

Andrew Dismore: The Deputy Leader of the House referred to all members of the public, but I would like to ask him about members of the public with disabilities. For example, may we consider having sign language interpreters, when appropriate and requested, in Select Committees? May we have documents written in Easyread for people with learning disabilities where the particular issue is of interest to them? For instance, my Select Committee produced its report on services for adults with learning disabilities in Easyread.

Chris Bryant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that matter. I know that the House authorities have worked hard to make it possible for Members of the House with disabilities to be able to function perfectly as well as any other Member of the House. That is clearly vital. He makes some interesting points that I will seek to take forward with the House authorities to see whether there are further ways to make those issues available.

Alan Duncan: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business, and welcome her back from her appearance at Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday. I hope that she has fully recovered. I also thank her—this is important—for correcting the record so swiftly on Sir Fred Goodwin's pension, and urge other Ministers to learn from her example.
	May we have a further statement on the position of Lord Myners, the City Minister, another banker who has received an honour for his services? Can the Leader of the House confirm that, contrary to previous assertions by the Government, Lord Myners was aware of Sir Fred Goodwin's obscene pension package and, indeed, acceded to it? Might the City Minister's willingness to rubber-stamp Sir Fred's pay-off have had something to do with the fact that he himself has a £100,000 pension entitlement from the Royal Bank of Scotland Group?
	May we also have a wide-ranging debate on honesty in Government? Yesterday morning the Minister for Borders and Immigration launched a very aggressive attack on the independent Office for National Statistics, criticising it for, as he put it, "playing politics", questioning its motives for releasing certain data, and describing its decision as
	"naive or, at worst, sinister".
	Is that not an astonishing charge from a Government who have consistently manipulated statistics for their own political advantage? How on earth can the Minister justify his statements when just two months ago his own boss, the Home Secretary, was forced to apologise to the House for partial and untimely publication of knife crime figures? Is it not increasingly the case that the Government quite simply do not like the statistics because the truth about them hurts?
	People up and down the country are finding that the social institutions that once bound us together as a country are fast disappearing. Local surgeries, small shops, police stations and post offices have all been victims of this Government, but now, it seems, it is the turn of the great British pub. Can the House, inspired by the all-party parliamentary beer group, be given an opportunity to debate the question of how pubs can survive when Government policy has already led to the closure of 2,000 of them? What is the point of making it seven times more expensive to drink in the controlled environment of a pub than to buy alcohol in a supermarket, following which so many people end up throwing up on the pavement?
	May we also have a debate on the question of how the traditional media will survive the recession? Yesterday's job cuts at ITV are a raw indication of the huge problems that the drop in advertising revenue will cause for both broadcasters and the press, and particularly for local newspapers, which are of great value to all of us in the House. I acknowledge that the right hon. and learned Lady may be tiring a little of the affectionate attentions of her friends in the media, but given that a healthy democracy is only sustainable with a healthy media, may we be told what Government policy is on saving our local radio stations and our local newspapers?
	Why are we not being given a statement, even today, on the economy? Can we not have a statement from the Government and a full debate on quantitative easing, so that Members can question the Government on how they intend to steer a course through inflation and deflation? The decisions being taken today are of the utmost gravity and will have profound effects on the economy for many years to come. They are desperate measures designed to address economic failure and collapse. When can we be told in clear terms exactly what the Government are doing and why?
	Finally, may we have a debate on the way MPs are treated by the press? In the past few weeks we have seen some very cruel references to the right hon. and learned Lady. We have had "Hapless Harriet", "The Mad Hattie" and "Hattie the Harridan"—and that is only from her own side. So may I invite her to my office for a comforting hug, a heart-shaped chocolate and an openly declared hefty cheque from me for her leadership campaign?

Harriet Harman: May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his excellent response to the business statement? He has rather over-achieved; indeed, on the basis of what he said just now, he must surely at least be on the shortlist for moving to the Wednesday slot and standing in for the Leader of the Opposition.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me about Sir Fred Goodwin's pension and Lord Myners, and I would refer him to the comments that were made in the House of Lords by Lord Myners when he answered questions on Monday this week. He made it absolutely clear that the decision was not one for the Government, but one for the old RBS board. That is the position, and we are looking into it, as I mentioned yesterday.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about Government statistics. We set up the independent Statistics Authority and the Office for National Statistics, because after his party had been in government, confidence in official information was at complete rock bottom. We therefore set up the Office for National Statistics and it does very important work.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about pubs. It is true that pubs, like any other businesses, need support during the recession, and I know that Ministers addressed the lobby of Parliament on behalf of pubs yesterday.
	The hon. Gentleman asked for more opportunity to discuss the economy. There will be a written ministerial statement later today about the decision by the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee to ensure that the inflation target is met and that the economy does not fall below that target by putting extra money into the economy, which is described as quantitative easing. There will be an opportunity to debate the economic situation in Government time next Monday, as well as an Opposition debate on Tuesday on unemployment and a debate on business rates on the following Wednesday. On Monday week there will be a debate on industry and exports and on Tuesday week there will be a debate on the Welfare Reform Bill. There will be a great deal of further discussion on the economy in the next week or two.

David Heath: The deputy Leader of the House was far too excitable and noisy earlier for me to give an illustration of what I meant by the truncation of consideration. The Northern Ireland Bill, which everyone agreed yesterday was very important, consisted of five clauses and six schedules, but only two clauses were completed in the House and the rest of the Bill was given no scrutiny at all by the elected House. That is no way to run a Parliament.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) that we need a debate on public service broadcasting in the widest sense, particularly in the context of ITV and also because we are losing some very important elements of public service broadcasting, not least children's television, which has almost completely gone down the drain. We need to make sure that the creative industries in this country are properly supported.
	May we have at the very least a statement, if not a debate, on the excellent report on contaminated blood and blood products by the noble Lord Archer of Sandwell? I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) and the hon. Members for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) and for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins) for their very good work in that area. It cannot be right that 5,000 haemophiliacs are infected with blood contaminated by HIV or hepatitis C yet no recompense is made and we do not investigate the circumstances. At present, there is no commitment for a Minister even to respond to the report, because it was not Government-commissioned, but I hope that the Government will respond and do so promptly, as the matter is of great public interest.
	I notice that on Tuesday 10 March we have a debate in Opposition time on the European working time directive. I welcome that, but may we have a separate statement from Ministers on the position of retained firefighters? There is a serious problem for those of us who live in rural areas because we rely on retained firefighters to provide an essential service, and the application of the working time directive in its present form will have a profound effect on their ability to do their job effectively.
	Lastly, I do not know whether the Leader of the House saw the performance before the Treasury Committee of the leadership of United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd—or UKFI as I believe we are supposed to call it—but I think most members of the Committee felt that it was fairly deplorable. From what the right hon. and learned Lady said yesterday, it seems that she has confidence in that organisation to do the job she wants. In view of her comments yesterday and, perhaps most appositely, the comments of her ministerial colleagues, may we assume that the Bill writing team for the Sir Fred Goodwin (Appropriation of Assets) Bill has now been stood down?

Harriet Harman: It is a pity if the SNP fails to recognise the sea change there has been on the need to ensure that we have a mixed energy economy, and that nuclear energy will play its part alongside renewables and carbon. Almost the whole of the environmental lobby has grasped the importance of the role of nuclear energy, and it is a pity that the SNP is lagging behind the times.

Harriet Harman: All of us as Members of this House know that we are fair game for rumbustious political debate; we expect that, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point about allegations of wrongdoing, dishonesty and the like. In this Chamber, there are very strict rules which govern that people have to have some evidence before they throw mud. In terms of personal accusations, Members should not make allegations against other hon. Members outside the House; that maligns the reputation of hon. Members and the House as a whole. I have a lot of sympathy for what the hon. Gentleman says.

Greg Mulholland: It is welcome that the Government have published the national dementia strategy, but the way that was announced—on television and without Department of Health Ministers coming before the House and explaining it—was unfortunate. Because this is such an important issue, and one that is of concern to Members in all parts of the House, may we now have a debate in Government time to talk about this important initiative, and how we can help the many people, and their families, who are plagued by that awful range of conditions?

Andrew Dismore: May we have an urgent statement on the deteriorating situation Sri Lanka, with the Sri Lankan army onslaught on Tamil areas? There are some terrible human rights abuses, serious atrocities are taking place, a lack of medical facilities and a complete news black-out is being imposed by the Sri Lankan Government so we hear very little about this in the media. Will my right hon. and learned Friend try to ensure that we get more information about this in House, and, in particular, will she consider whether Sri Lanka should be suspended from the Commonwealth, bearing in mind those appalling human rights abuses?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend might have seen that the Secretary of State for International Development was in Gaza just a few days ago—perhaps I shall discuss with him whether it would be worth while his updating the House by way of a written ministerial statement. It is an utmost concern of ours to ensure, together with the international community, that the humanitarian aid so desperately needed for reconstruction in Gaza gets through to the people who need it.

Edward Leigh: My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) is one of the most honourable, straightforward and honest Members of this House. A grave disservice was done to him on Monday night when his proposal was put to the vote without a proper debate. Since the Ballot Act 1872, which was one of the great achievements of the Victorians, there has been a requirement that one must put one's home address on the ballot paper. [Hon. Members: "No!"] Yes, since that Act—and as far as I know nobody has been attacked in their home. This matter is vitally important, because it is about the liberties of the people. Will the Leader of the House now commit to our having a proper debate on it?

David Taylor: My constituent, Declan Turner, who is dyslexic, achieved nine A to C grades at GCSE. Despite that, because he did not achieve the same in English, he is precluded from progressing to a level 3 apprenticeship. The local Stephenson college has been very helpful, but policy change is needed by EMTA Awards Ltd. It is one of many such problems that dyslexic students encounter. Can we have a debate on dyslexia and the Government's plans, priorities and resources for tackling the discrimination and injustice that is still the daily lot with which many people have to grapple on a continuing basis?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend raises a very important point on behalf of his constituents. I shall raise it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills and I shall also discuss it with him, because we want to ensure that there is access for everybody who can benefit from apprenticeship schemes and that people do not face the sorts of obstacles that my hon. Friend has described.

Harriet Harman: It is not a reform that has been buried—far from it; the topical debates have been very useful. The possibility of Lords amendments next Thursday, together with the fact that we will consider the motion to take account of the reports of the Public Accounts Committee, are the reasons why we will not have a topical debate next Thursday. The following Thursday's business was only provisional, so I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman waits until next Thursday to see the final business for the following week before deciding whether or not it would be more important to have a topical debate.

Ann Cryer: Can we have an early debate on the operation of the Department for Transport's Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, which announced the closure of the Steeton testing station, in my constituency, without any consultation? That facility is well regarded and is booked up for weeks ahead, and local firms and the Keighley bus museum, of which I am a trustee, will have to travel at least 25 miles after the closure. This is a really badly thought out closure.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point about concerns in her constituency, and I suggest that she takes the opportunity to raise it in oral questions to the Department for Transport next Tuesday.

Harriet Harman: We are trying to ensure on that Bill that there are as few Government amendments as possible, aside from those that arise from Opposition and Back Bencher requests in Committee. As far as subsequent stages are concerned, until we have seen the full range of Opposition amendments tabled it is obviously not possible to work out the adequate amount of time that needs to be set aside for addressing the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must say that we must be careful about what we say about Members of the other place. We must not imply anything about their conduct. Perhaps the Leader of the House will take that point into account.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman will know, because he is closely involved in and works continually on these issues, that the Department for Children, Schools and Families has been developing and implementing an anti-bullying strategy. Bullying at school can blight a child's whole life, and I suggest that he tries to raise the issue at DCSF questions on Monday.

Andrew Murrison: In the business statement I missed again any reference to a debate on the aircraft carrier programme. The Leader of the House will remember that in December the delay to that programme was sneaked out by way of written ministerial statement. The grounds for the delay—namely that the aircraft could not be provided within the timeframe originally envisaged—have been flatly denied by the supplier. Will the Leader of the House ensure that Defence Ministers are apprised of the importance of this matter and that Government time is made available for this issue of vital national significance to be adequately debated in the House?

Anne Main: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have just had an update from the Leader of the House that we have now gone to £75 billion quantitative easing, which is uncharted territory. I ask the Leader of House to consider arranging an emergency statement on the matter so that the House might debate it. Frankly, I am surprised that we are not at least being offered a topical debate on the matter, given that it was widely trailed on all the radio programmes this morning and is now a reality.

Mr. Speaker: If I can finish. I can then call a Minister to the House. I have no doubt that the deep concern that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) has mentioned will be noted.

Support for Women (Economic Downturn)

Harriet Harman: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of support for women through the economic downturn and for the future.
	International women's day is the day that we celebrate the role of women in their families and at work in this country and around the world. It is a time to focus on our determination to tackle the discrimination against, and oppression of, women and to step up our progress towards fairness and equality. The theme of today's debate is women in the downturn and beyond it, and I want to say why we have chosen this subject.
	People say that the global economic downturn surely affects men and women alike. Yes, the global economic downturn affects both men and women, but it affects them in different ways because women's lives are different from men's. Women still do the lion's share of caring for children and looking after older relatives. Women are still, in many ways, the managers of the family. Women have different patterns of work from men and are more likely to work part time. There are still some jobs that are mostly done by women and some that are mostly done by men. Women still suffer pay discrimination at work.
	What has not changed since the last recession is the fact that women are still the main family carers. What has changed is the fact that women's work is even more important now than it was 10 years ago. Women's jobs are much more important than they used to be at the time of the last recession. Women's work is even more important to the household budget than it used to be. More than 30 per cent. of a family's income in couples' households comes from women. For more than 20 per cent. of all couples, women's individual income contributes to more than 50 per cent. of that family income. Women's work is even more important than it used to be to the household budget.
	Women's work is more important to women themselves. Women have a pride in the work that they do and know that they make a contribution to the world outside the home as well as in the home. Women's work is more important now in every sector of the economy than it was. In financial services, women make up 50 per cent. of the work force. In the retail sector, women make up 60 per cent. of the work force. Women's work is vital in public services, too. Some 65 per cent. of public services are delivered by women.
	Women's work is important, too, in lone parent families, so that children are not brought up in households where they never see anyone going out to work.

Harriet Harman: I can tell the House that we will keep the right to request flexible work that is so important for parents who have to balance work with bringing up children. Moreover, far from cutting back on that right, we are going to extend it: from 1 April, the right will be available for parents with children up to the age of 16, rather than just six.
	We cannot tackle what is a global financial crisis in any one country. We need international action, and that is what the Prime Minister is taking forward in the run-up to the G20 meeting. For many women, however, the appearance on the news of a global economic summit does not inspire in them the sense that the people at the summit are talking about them—their hopes, fears, life and work.

Harriet Harman: I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is one of the important issues to be addressed in the equality Bill that we will bring forward in a few months.
	As I said, we need to take international action, but many women do not think that global economic summits talk about them or really understand their lives. However, April's G20 summit in London will be different. It wants to listen to the concerns of women as well as men, to act to protect families as well as work places, and to hear women's voices as well as men's. Women's voices will be heard at the summit through a big discussion about women and the global economic downturn.
	The economic debate is being discussed in unusual channels. The discussion has been storming through the website Mumsnet, and I want to thank each and every one of the women who have posted comments on the site about the debate on the economy. I cannot help noticing that most of the posts are made at 9 pm or later, after the children have been put to bed.
	Debate is raging not just through  The Economist, as it will also feature in  Take a Break magazine. Moreover, bankers and Ministers are not the only ones meeting in No. 11 Downing street to discuss the economy. Yesterday, a meeting in No. 11 was attended by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespersons on these matters, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone). I thank them both for coming. It was also attended by representatives of the Towns Women's Guild, the Women's TUC, the Women's National Commission and the Fawcett Society. Their views, and the views of all the others who attended yesterday, will be fed into the London summit in April.
	The matter is also being discussed by women in different parts of the world. It was discussed at the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament, which I was delighted to address last month on behalf of the Government. It is also being discussed at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York, and the Government Equalities Office is playing a part in that. After the London summit, I shall host a meeting of women Ministers from other countries to engage women in a continuous discussion of how we can go forward from the G20.
	As well as offering real help now, we need to build a stronger economy and a fairer society after the recession. As I said, we will introduce a new law to give women and men who have children up to the age of 16 the right to request flexible working. Our Government enterprise strategy will support women entrepreneurs, and that very important work will be carried out through the regional development agencies.
	We have set up an inquiry into pay discrimination in the financial services industry, which will be carried out by the Equality Commission. The financial services sector needs a major shake-up—that is clear beyond doubt. One of the issues that needs to be addressed is pay, not just for those at the top but for the 50 per cent. of financial services employees who are women.
	The gender pay gap in financial services is worse than in any other sector. The pay gap for women in retail is 14 per cent.—that is still too big and unfair—but in financial services it is a staggering 44 per cent. The Equality Commission will give an interim report to me at the end of this month, and will then go on to make further inquiries and use its legal powers if necessary. We will also press on with our equality Bill to ensure fairer treatment of women at work—all women, including minority ethnic women, women with disabilities, and older women.
	In conclusion, the task of the Government in these tough economic times is to ensure that the recession is as short and as shallow as possible. We must also protect the most vulnerable during it and ensure that we lay the basis for a better Britain, a stronger economy and—absolutely crucially—a fairer society.

Dari Taylor: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way again. She is addressing the issue of the recession in a very positive way, but will she comment on the statement made by one Opposition Member that recession can be good for us?

Theresa May: The pension credit would be better worth celebrating if the Government had not made claiming it so complicated that large numbers of people are simply not taking it up, and not getting the pension credit to which they are entitled.
	When I looked at the Order Paper today, I was struck by the fact that the title of the debate has changed in the past few days. Last week, when the Leader of the House announced the debate, it was to be on "supporting women and families through the downturn and building a strong and fair economy for the future". That has now been reduced to "Support for women through the economic downturn and for the future." I wonder what has happened to "building a strong and fair economy for the future." I suspect that the words may have changed because the Government are not building a strong and fair economy for the future; they have not got to grips with how they will get us out of the mess of this recession. There has been a flurry of activity on the part of the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, which has grabbed headlines but had no real effect. That "headless chicken" approach to policy making will not help women and families, or businesses.
	Let us look at some of the initiatives announced by the Government that have not actually come to anything. The working capital scheme is still not operational. The internship scheme does not exist. Recruitment subsidies are not yet active. The guarantee scheme for asset-backed securities is non-existent, and the home owner mortgage support scheme, announced in December, is still not in place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) pointed out, for some women who are running businesses, and some employees of businesses, it is essential that the Government get the loans guarantee scheme up and running if those businesses are to continue and to keep people in jobs. On the "Real help now for women" document, launched yesterday, I note that in the section on "Help to start or grow a business", no reference is made to the Government's loan guarantee scheme—because, I suspect, it is not yet in place.
	The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families says that this will be the worst recession for 100 years, but the Government have not actually put anything in place to deal with it effectively. Later, I shall talk about our proposals to help women and families through the downturn and create a strong economy for the future, but first I want to touch on some of the ways in which this recession will have an impact on women that differs from other recessions. We know that the alarming unemployment figures are affecting families in all parts of the country, and there is certainly reason to believe that women will fare much worse in this recession than they did in previous ones. In the last recession, industries such as retail, hotels and catering, where women's jobs dominate, fared fairly well compared with manufacturing and construction, but this time it is clear that all sectors of the economy are being hit. That is shown in the fact that although men's redundancy rates remain higher than women's, the growth in the redundancy rate for women is double that of men.
	The effects of redundancy can be particularly harsh on women, who tend to earn less anyway, and have fewer savings to fall back on. The Leader of the House referred to lone parents who are women; lone parents with children can be at particular risk of hardship, with evidence showing that women with dependent children are more likely than other women to be unemployed. The effect on a family of a woman becoming unemployed could be greater in this recession than in the past, because women's contributions to family income are now higher than they were. In a significant proportion of couple households, women contribute over 50 per cent. of family income. If their partner is made redundant, there will be additional pressure on women to stay in work, or to get back into the workplace.
	There is also a concern, raised at the summit held yesterday in No. 11—I congratulate the right hon. and learned Lady on getting into No. 11; perhaps next time she will make it into No. 10—that women's aspirations will be hit. They may pass up opportunities for promotion because of concerns that "last in, first out" arrangements might make it not worth their while to take up opportunities. So the recession will directly affect women in ways that previous ones have never done. The immediate priority for the Government must be to take action to support businesses and prevent further dramatic rises in unemployment. That means that we need to get to the heart of the credit crunch and get credit moving again. With businesses threatened with closure every day, it is unforgivable that the Government have still not adopted our proposal for a national loan guarantee scheme of up to £50 billion.
	The bank recapitalisation has not worked in getting credit moving, and companies now face huge problems because of a lack of working credit. If the Government are serious about helping women and men, they must guarantee loans to businesses, as we have proposed. It is by getting credit flowing that we will prevent the further rises in unemployment that families fear. There is much more that the Government could do to support families at this time. For example, why do they not adopt our plan to work with councils to freeze council tax for two years? What about reducing energy bills for millions of people by enabling them to set up direct debits through their Post Office card accounts? And what about giving savers the break to which I referred earlier, in response to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone)? That would be particularly useful to those many elderly women who are trying to eke out their income with that little bit extra from their savings.
	There is one area where the Government could be doing more in a very practical way to help women, and that is in community learning, helping people who have been out of the labour market for a long time. Owing to Government cuts, there are now 1.4 million fewer publicly funded community learning courses than there were just four years ago, so there are over half a million fewer women in further education or skills training than in 2005—a far greater reduction compared with men, although they have also lost out.
	Community learning offers an important, locally based route to training for those who have been away from the labour market, particularly women who have been out of work looking after a child and are now finding it harder to get back into the workplace. Of course, it also helps people across the board who have been made redundant. The courses offered can be particularly beneficial to women because they are flexible—for example, short courses in IT and other skills that are important in boosting somebody's employability. The Government should adopt our proposal for a £100 million community learning fund, paid for by refocusing the Train to Gain budget. Adult and community learning has immense social value and promotes social mobility, and now more than ever it needs greater support.
	Looking to the future, women and families will be hit by the Government's plan to increase national insurance on everyone earning over £20,000—that is, were this Government to be in place after the next general election. That means higher taxes for every qualified nurse and police officer, not to mention the £2 billion that it will cost businesses. That will fundamentally undermine economic recovery at the very time that the Government talk about building the fair and strong economy to which the right hon. and learned Lady referred.
	The Government boast of their "real help" for women, but there is nothing helpful or fair about temporary tax cuts followed by permanent tax rises, particularly not when those tax cuts are simply compensating for the disastrous abolition of the 10p tax rate, one of the singularly most unfair measures implemented by a British Government. The Government are on difficult ground when they speak of building a fair society. We will welcome measures that genuinely seek to build a stronger and fairer economy.
	We look forward to the publication of the equality Bill, but it is nearly nine months since the right hon. and learned Lady came to the Dispatch Box to announce details of the Bill, and it still has not been published. I was interested to hear her responses both in business questions and earlier in the debate. In business questions she said that the Bill would be brought forward over the next few months. In response earlier in the debate, she said that it would be brought forward in a few months.
	We see further delay in the equality Bill, which was the Government's flagship equality legislation promised in their 2005 manifesto. The Leader of the House is fast running out of time to get that legislation on the statute book. It is hard to avoid the impression that, as the newspaper reports suggest, the Government are split on the issue. As soon as he was appointed, Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool let it be known that he would be delaying the Bill, and it looks very much as though he is winning the battle.
	When, or if, the Bill is published, we will engage constructively with it. I welcome the opportunity that it will present to consolidate equality legislation, making things simpler for businesses and local authorities. But we need to be clear why, over recent years, equality has been given a bad name. To many people, equality has become about bureaucracy and box-ticking, getting in the way of business efficiency, particularly in small companies. Equality should never be the enemy of common sense, and it should not get in the way of businesses, but help them work better. So the equality Bill cannot be allowed simply to sweep existing equality legislation into a single pile, but must improve on what we have.

Philip Davies: My right hon. Friend said that certain things give equality a bad name. Does she agree that one of those is the fact that the Equality and Human Rights Commission goes round lecturing all sorts of organisations about equality of pay and is given taxpayers' money to make sure that everyone is paid equally, yet the same organisation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, pays men more than women, non-disabled people more than disabled people, and white people more then ethnic minorities? Is that not rather hypocritical on the part of that organisation?

Theresa May: I shall make a little more progress. Then if the hon. Lady still wishes to intervene, I shall give way to her.
	For women, one issue of fairness is equal pay. I know that the Leader of the House shares my commitment to reducing the gender pay gap, which remains stubbornly high at over 17 per cent. Equal pay is not just something for women in the City, or in other highly paid industries. It is about ensuring that women at the bottom of the pay scale also have proper and fair protection—women who work hard to provide for their families, and some who may have the confidence to fight for fairness.
	Back in 2007, I put forward a number of proposals that I believe will make a real difference. I even set up a Facebook group, Theresa May for Equal Pay, although as far as I am aware, the right hon. and learned Lady has not yet joined it.

Theresa May: I am happy to say to the hon. Lady that after the next election there will be a step change in the number of women Conservative Members of Parliament sitting in this House. The sadness for Parliament as a whole is that some of those women Conservative MPs will knock out sitting women Labour MPs, so Parliament as a whole may not see that big an increase, but we will certainly see a significantly increased number of Conservative women MPs sitting in the Chamber.
	The hon. Lady is right that there is complexity in the gender pay gap issue, which is why the six-point plan that I published back in 2007 does not just focus on legislation, but relates to issues such as increasing flexible working, and also issues such as careers advice to girls, which is a particularly important element of ensuring that girls and young women understand the implications in pay terms of the careers choices that they make. Frustration about the Government's failure to do anything about this led my noble Friend Baroness Morris of Bolton to put forward the Equal Pay and Flexible Working Bill in the House of Lords. In the Second Reading debate, the Minister for Economic Competitiveness and Small Business, Baroness Vadera, effectively said that there was no need for Baroness Morris's Bill because all the measures would be covered by the Government's equality Bill. I hope that when she speaks later, the Solicitor-General, who I understand will lead for the Government on the equality Bill, will confirm that all our proposals will feature in their Bill, and if not, outline exactly why the Government oppose them.
	This is not just an issue of equality for women—it is about fairness for families, particularly those on low incomes. A TUC report last year found that tackling women's low pay is the key to ending child poverty, not least because half of poor children come from working families. One of the problems is that women with children who are seeking work generally want part-time or flexible working opportunities but find those difficult to come by. That is why the second half of our proposals on flexible working is so important.
	I have welcomed the Government's proposal to expand the right to request flexible working to parents with children aged up to 16, although the proposal originally put forward by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition well over a year ago was to go up to 18. However, I welcome the fact that this April it will at least be extended to 16. It is important that we do all we can to help women with children into work once their children reach a suitable age. This is not just about highly paid professionals but poorer families, because helping mothers into work will help to tackle poverty. Studies have shown that child poverty would be dramatically reduced if even a relatively small proportion of poorer single-earner families became dual-earner families.

Theresa May: The hon. Lady's attempt to defend the Government's inability to do anything about this is not very convincing. It is not only the Conservative party that is drawing attention to the impact of working tax credits on separation and divorce among families. That is having a real effect out there on many families. Strong economies rely on strong societies, and we have a responsibility to ensure that we are doing what we can to help bolster families, not bringing in systems such as the working tax credit couple penalty that make it better for many families to be apart rather than together.
	Another cause for concern is the fact that about 40 per cent. of parents spend only two hours or less with their child or children each day. That is a particularly important issue at a time of recession, when families face greater strains. Making Britain more family-friendly will strengthen our society, and in doing so, strengthen our economy. Business leaders recognise that as well. Many businesses have already embraced flexible working, finding that it increases staff commitment, productivity and retention. On both equal pay and flexible working, it is a shame that the Government did not take sufficient action in the good times and are now playing catch-up during a recession. We should have gone into the downturn with families in a far better position to benefit from flexible working and with more women getting the equal pay they deserve. That opportunity was missed, but we must now ensure that when we come out of recession we do so with more family-friendly business practices operating in a stronger, fairer and more family-friendly economy.
	An economic downturn can obviously have serious effects on issues relating to the economy and the finances of a family, but it can go beyond the merely financial. At the women's summit yesterday, one subject discussed was the impact on domestic violence. The Home Secretary and the Attorney-General have warned that at a time of recession, with pressures on families, we may see an increase in domestic violence. This is not an area for party politics, but I hope that Ministers have had a chance to read the paper that I published just before Christmas on ending violence against women, which puts forward several genuinely helpful proposals on domestic violence and other forms of violence against women. The Government have done some good work in this area; they introduced a piece of legislation in 2004 and the specialist domestic violence courts are a real step forward, but there is much more to do.
	I have been calling for some considerable time, as has my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, for a cross-Government strategy on violence against women, and I welcome the fact that the Government have now said they will implement one. However, I hope it will have a particular focus on prevention. As the Home Affairs Committee said last year, the Government's current approach
	"remains disproportionately focused on criminal justice responses at the expense of prevention".
	That is mirrored by services on the ground. Eaves Women's Aid in Barking and Dagenham has said that it is
	"concerned that the government is channelling resources entirely through the Criminal Justice System"
	and therefore
	"not really supporting the work done by specialist service providers such as ourselves."
	There needs to be a rebalancing of policy towards prevention, working with schools, police, health care professions and the voluntary sector. I very much look forward to more being done on this.

Karen Buck: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I would like to spend a few minutes talking about child care, and its importance in helping families, and particularly women, through the economic downturn. I have concerns about modifications we may need to make to the child care strategy.
	Before I do so, however, I would like to mention two issues, one of which has come up already in today's debate. I was sorry that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) was so dismissive of the achievements made in respect of the pension credit because I am proud of the contribution that pension credit has made to families, particularly to women and pensioner couples, in a constituency such as mine. The last time I looked at the figures, I think that we had around 7,000 households in receipt of pension credit, with an average payment £70 a week on top of the old income support level. It has been hugely important in helping women, and as I said in my earlier intervention, women have benefited most because they did not have that full contributions record.
	It is of course true that any means-tested benefit will put some people off making an application, which is particularly the case for those who would only get a small benefit from an application. Any means-tested benefit involves a taper, and people at the narrowest end of that will not think that an application is worth their while. There is no real evidence to suggest that any underclaiming of pension credit occurs among those whose income would benefit substantially. Indeed, all the evidence suggests that those who are not claiming are those who would only receive a small amount of money.

Karen Buck: That is right, and I am sure that that experience is replicated elsewhere. I pay tribute to Age Concern in Westminster, which has outreach workers who work with pensioners and help them to complete those forms.
	Another thing that the Government have done in recent years that I am also pleased about is ensure that there is a better read-across between different types of benefit so that pensioners and other claimants do not have to go through a multiple process of claiming if they are entitled to more than one benefit. We should be pleased with the pension credit, and we should also aim to do more to raise awareness of claims for council tax benefit, which is the single most underclaimed benefit of those means-tested benefits. There is much that we could do to improve the delivery of council tax benefit for the good of pensioners and other low-income households, and I would like to see more work on that. In fact, I would like to see more emphasis on that benefit entitlement than on the freezing of council tax, because higher earners and those with higher value properties need to make a contribution to council tax in order to protect services for the most vulnerable.
	Families—particularly women—who are disproportionately over-represented among low earners are at risk of falling into debt as their earnings fall, or as they fall out of employment. Enormously valuable work has been done by advice agencies and debt agencies across the country to help families, and as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Citizens Advice, I would like to pay huge tribute to the work that Citizens Advice do in this respect. The great concern is that, if debt levels rise, some families will fall into a downward spiral of debt that is exacerbated by the actions of debt recovery agencies and bailiffs.
	My local authority has one of the highest rates of use of bailiffs in the country, and I would like to share with the House the most disturbing experience of a constituent who came to see me yesterday. Unfortunately, I fear that it will be symptomatic of what goes on, and the Government and local authorities across the country need to take more action. The lady who came to see me is a single parent with two children. She is in part-time employment and earns about £500 a month, with tax credit on top of that. She had a long-term overpayment of council tax benefit in the early part of this decade, and ended up with a £3,000 overpayment. The bailiffs came to her to take recovery action, and she was asked to pay £100 a month on top of her current council tax payments, out of a total income of about £1,000 a month. That is utterly unsustainable.
	Naturally enough, my constituent fell into difficulty. More worryingly, the later years of council tax benefit, all of which are treated as an individual debt, were passed on to a second bailiffs agency, which is pursuing her separately for further claims of the overpayment. She is in huge distress, but perhaps most worryingly of all, her 14-year-old son is so worried about the bailiffs' action and threats that they had made about the recovery of property, that he is unwilling to leave the house outside of school because he fears being confronted on the doorstep by bailiffs seeking to get into the house. The mother told me, with tears pouring down her face, that he sits with the lights turned off in the winter because he is terrified that the bailiffs, knowing that there is somebody in the house, will come in and repossess his computer.

Lynne Featherstone: I have heard of similar experiences. It is heartbreaking and terrifying that the debt is transferred to the bailiffs so quickly, because they are relentless, and impose extra charges that deepen the debt. Would the hon. Lady agree that the local authority—in my case, Haringey—should be far more willing to sit down with the person in debt to reschedule it? People are willing to pay off such debt over time and should not be forced to deal with bailiffs immediately because the council does not have time for people in trouble.

Karen Buck: I totally agree with that. Bailiffs should very much be a last resort. Sometimes their use will be necessary; there will be those who deliberately and persistently refuse to pay their debts, and I understand that they have to be pursued. But the use of bailiffs should be a last resort because, as the hon. Lady pointed out, the charges of the bailiffs and for court fees are added to the original debt, simply compounding the family's financial crisis. As we face what will tragically be an increase in the level of debt over the course of the global economic downturn, we must, at government and at local authority level, consider a more pragmatic and supportive way of dealing with families—disproportionately, but not only, women—who find themselves in debt. If there is anything that Ministers can do to advise local authorities on a better responsive use of bailiffs for debt recovery, I would appreciate it.
	In recent years, the Government have brought about a transformation in the provision of child care. Such provision has acted to help to underpin the increase in women's entry to the workplace, particularly and obviously lone-parental entry, because, in many cases, that could not have happened without quality, affordable child care. Those two things go hand in hand. Over the past decade, as the national child care strategy has been rolled out, we have seen a £25 billion investment in child care, and the provision of 1.3 million registered child care places, as compared with provision in 1997.
	At the core of this process has been the offer of a free child care place for three and four-year-olds, which has a take-up rate of about 95 per cent. That is obviously indicative of the desire among parents for their children to go into child care. The Conservative Government before 1997 chose to leave child care to the marketplace, arguing that it was something that parents should only be able to buy into if they had the resources. We, rightly, utterly rejected that view, saying that child care should be made available more widely as a realistic choice, particularly for low income families. I have been gratified in the past two or three years to see the greater responsiveness in Government strategy to some of the problems experienced in places such as my own constituency in London, where the provision of child care is exceptionally expensive, and where the funding that the Department for Children, Schools and Families has put into the London child care affordability programme has made a lot of difference. For example, we are considering the contribution that parents have to make in the child care tax credits system, and the gap is going to be closed. The contribution that people have been asked to make towards the high cost of child care has been a deterrent, and the changes have been enormously responsive and made a great deal of difference to child care in my constituency.

Lynne Featherstone: Yesterday, as the Minister for Women and Equality said, the Government hosted a group of women to discuss women and the recession. It was a tremendously informative and worthwhile debate, with an amazing group of women, and I should love to see them all here today. It was made clear in that debate that, in a recession, women who have had a high-paying job might choose to stop doing their job because they can no longer afford the child care as their hours are reduced. They then go back into their homes. The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) has just made that point as well.
	At the other end of the scale, women who do not have high-paying jobs and who have no resilience to the recession, because they have no fall-back position and no savings with which to pay for anything, can fall into dreadful levels of debt. Many people who have come to my surgery tell me that the bailiffs have been called in very rapidly, and that the council has refused even to meet them to consider rescheduling their council tax or rent arrears. Perhaps the Government and the local authorities could take action to relieve the pressure on those who have no ability to deal with sudden debt. They have no way to recover, let alone deal with the compounding debt that results from the bailiffs becoming involved.
	Women also need information on where to acquire skills and learning during the recession, and, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said, the increase in women's vulnerability to domestic violence is a key issue. It is also clear that we do not yet have hard evidence in the form of data on the differential impacts that the recession will have on women. In order to prevent any further comments from the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—who is actually no longer in his place—it might be helpful to pull in the statistical data from all the various sources, so that we have the evidence to prove the worse, and differential, impact of a recession on women. Otherwise, we shall get into a pointless competition over who has it worse during an economic slowdown. We need to guard against creating resentment in other quarters, not least among the thousands of men who are going to be victims of the downturn. There is a lot of pain going around, and no one group has a monopoly on suffering as a result of the fallout from a recession.
	There are aspects to this recession that make it a unique situation in which women are finding themselves for the first time, so it is right for the House to consider, in marking international women's day, whether the Government are doing enough to help the women and families who are going to suffer the consequences of the recession. There are now more women in paid employment than ever before, apart from during the world wars. There is no place in this debate to argue for preferential treatment for women, but our purpose today must be to ensure that women get their fair share and do not get left behind or suffer disproportionately from the recession or from further discrimination.
	To understand fully the problems that women now face, we cannot ignore the position that women found themselves in before the contraction of the economy. It is important to acknowledge—recession or no recession—that women face greater hurdles in employment than men. Equal pay is a key issue for me. The preamble of the Equal Pay Act 1970 says that the purpose of the Act is to
	"prevent discrimination, as regards terms and conditions of employment, between men and women."
	Yet the Office for National Statistics' earnings survey spells out the reality in simple terms. In 2008, the average full-time wage for a man was £27,500; for a woman, it was £21,400. The gap has been reduced over the years, but it still needs much further reduction. It has been suggested, however, that there is no point in squabbling about equal pay if there are no jobs in which to be paid unequally.
	Women in the service sector, and particularly the retail sector, are going to feel the most devastating effects of the recession. A recent CBI service sector survey revealed that jobs are being lost at the fastest rate in over a decade. That shrinking is putting in jeopardy the one employment sector that is significantly more amenable to the domestic situation of women than other sectors, because of flexible, part-time working. With the retail sector in decline, we should be particularly worried about the effect on employment for women. The work might not always be glamorous, skilled or particularly well paid, but it is practical for mothers.
	There are two issues relating to flexible, part-time working that need to be tackled. One relates to educating employers at the other end of the spectrum from the retail sector about employing part-time staff. Such employment is often regarded as suitable only to the retail sector, and employers often fear that it will be more costly to employ people on a part-time basis. I am sure that other hon. Members will have come across an organisation called Women Like Us, whose members go to the school gates and deal with one half of the issue by giving women who have had a career break the confidence, through hand-holding and skills training, to get back into work—part time to start with. The other half of their really important work is to demonstrate to employers at all levels of women's employment that it is not more expensive to employ people part time, and that it is beneficial to their companies. If we can get companies to spread that best practice, there will be more opportunities for women in part-time work right across the spectrum of the working world.
	We can always argue about the quality of work—I spent a fair time myself washing up, serving in shops and table waiting—and we can talk about the burden of child care, as the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North did so eloquently, but given the urgency of the situation, one of my concerns is what is done in an emergency or crisis and where the Government put their money. It would be tragic if the high level of female employment and the advances made on equality were swept away by the recession.
	Without going into the issue in a long-winded way, one must say that whatever the business model of Woolworths—it may not have been the most likely to survive in any case, in the face of increased competition from the internet and the way in which the world has generally gone—we could equally criticise the business model of certain car manufacturers that relied on endless supplies of unsustainable credit and allowed consumers to keep buying cars that they could not afford. The key difference between those sectors is that one is to receive Government money and the other is not.
	We should, of course, consider the economic benefits on a case-by-case basis, but will the Minister tell me in winding up the debate whether any consideration was given—and if so, what—to the equality impact of the decision collectively to subsidise some industries as opposed to others? I would be grateful if she confirmed whether an equality impact assessment was done? It is my understanding that, under current equality legislation, there is a duty on the Treasury and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to carry out such assessments in respect of any substantive policy change. It would be dreadful if money were used that ultimately turned out to be discriminatory as an unintended consequence. These are important checks and balances to ensure that women and minorities are not ignored or suffer disproportionate detriment in the decision-making process. Just because decisions have to be made quickly in a crisis should not be an excuse for processes to be abandoned completely.
	I shall now deal with maternity benefits—the risks posed for business, but more importantly, for women. We have to recognise that employers face unprecedented challenges in maintaining the viability of their businesses during an economic downturn. It is difficult to find exact figures, but maternity leave is a significant employment cost, particularly for good employers who pay above the statutory minimum. As employers try to squeeze their costs down, it is not hard to imagine that firms offering maternity pay plus benefits will begin to reduce such benefits.
	That is an open and legitimate process. If an offer is made to women not to come back to work after maternity leave and instead to receive some redundancy package, it is reasonable to assume that some will exit themselves from the workplace. They will then face even greater barriers getting back into work in a few years' time. Those who choose to stay in work rather than be persuaded out of it, and whose maternity benefit is reduced to the statutory minimum, will have to manage on a very low amount. The statutory minimum is £117.18, although most women receive on average £400 a week—a substantial difference. I refer only to companies that are legally allowed to act in that; there are probably darker consequences for women's employment.

Angela Watkinson: Does the hon. Lady agree that there is also a danger that in the recruitment process employers may favour applicants with no children? In an economic downturn, when employers are worried about the sort of costs that she describes, there will be a disadvantageous effect on anybody with children who applies for a job.

Mark Harper: In light of the hon. Lady's response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), she might be interested to know that research published by the Government Equalities Office shows that that particular view is widespread: 72 per cent. of men and 72 per cent. of women think it important that family breadwinners' jobs are preserved first when organisations are thinking about who to make redundant.

Lynne Featherstone: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good case to demonstrate the importance of equal pay and the Equal Pay Act 1970—that more often than not the principal breadwinner would not be the man; perhaps some of those somewhat old-fashioned values could be left a long way behind.
	I started by talking about yesterday's wonderful event at 11 Downing street, the prime intention of which, so far as I can gather, was to raise women's voices and concerns about the economic downturn with the G20. I say to the Minister that it is equally important that those voices find a resonance and outcome in the equality Bill. I have some concerns about what may be proposed on equal pay, because the differential is still severe. Although the Government are genuinely seeking to make what employers will or will not have to show open and transparent, there will still be a differential between Liberal Democrat and Labour Members on mandatory and voluntary pay audits. There is the further problem that, irrespective of whether those audits are mandatory or voluntary, merely watching something is not enough.
	I recently referred Cambridge university to the Equality and Human Rights Commission because it voluntarily published its pay differentials. I believe that the differential between male and female pay is about 32 per cent. It is not enough to have the bare statistics; in the end, we have to drill down to find out the whys and wherefores—what is historic, what is discriminatory, what is rational and so forth. On finding discrimination, we need to know what will be consequent upon that finding. I am anxious that the equality Bill, in its treatment of equal pay, does not simply add a process or a tick box. Such an approach has come into disrepute; too often, the equalities and the environmental impacts of reports that go through various committees or agencies are an afterthought—or just a tick-box. They must have real meaning; equal pay is just such an issue.
	I am concerned about the ominous rumblings coming from Lord Mandelson, which the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) also referred to. The trade press and the right-wing press have been littered recently with scare stories: I do not know that they emanate from Lord Mandelson, but I believe that some of them may well do, as he was quoted in some. These scare stories are vilifying various parts of the Bill. If Lord Mandelson seems to be stepping in as the white knight, saving business, it is dangerous and a false dichotomy to pit equalities against the need of the economy. The needs of those who face discrimination do not stop where the needs of British businesses begin.
	I read reports of a confidential memo from the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform—confidential enough to be shared with  The Times newspaper and Ministers—that asked them to
	"advise on a moratorium on legislation and legislative announcements made but not yet implemented that will entail additional costs for businesses".
	The tone of those briefings to the right-wing press and the business lobby seems to indicate that companies that continue to discriminate will have absolutely nothing to fear from the forthcoming Bill and the equalities legislation.
	My sense is that those in the Cabinet who share my sense of urgency about the need for greater action on inequality are fighting against the tide. I am not naive enough to argue that there will be no cost to legislation to tackle equality, but the Government have to have the courage of their convictions, and their own statistics on costs bear out the plain economic sense of tackling that inequality.
	The Government Equalities Office estimates in its initial impact assessment—the detailed cost-benefit analysis—that the maximum one-off costs of the Bill will be £221 million. That is the up-front cost to Britain of the new equality regulations.

Lynne Featherstone: Yes, I agree totally with the hon. Lady. We have a huge selling job to do here—cross-party—on the benefits to employers of having a diverse and flexible work force, rather than the traditional one that we have always had. We must consider the benefits of home working, conferencing and all sorts of things that can be done that would be money saving. They are the benefits, but the way they are portrayed to business and the media sabre rattling scare business off. We meet that attitude wherever we go, so I thank her for raising that point.
	I was doing a little bit on the sums, and £53 million of the up-front costs could be offset by the maximum estimates of immediate benefits. That would leave £168 million. The one-off costs apart, the range of the annual recurring benefit—continued, as has been said—is estimated to be between £122 million and £165 million against a recurring annual cost of £24 million to £53 million. Taking the mid point, for the sake of argument, that would mean about £143.5 million benefits versus £38.5 million recurring annual costs of the new legislation. That works out as a net benefit of £105 million for every single year the legislation is in force. At that rate of return, it would take just over 19 months to recoup the initial cost of the legislation. The argument is completely specious. We have to go out there and make it, and not let the Government back down, because the legislation is not expensive. I would argue that we cannot afford not to introduce it.
	There is no doubt that business is hurting and hostile, but one reason for that might be how the Bill has come forward. I do not know how much discussion the Government have had with business, because there has not been a Green Paper or a White Paper; nor do we know what is coming in the final draft. It is hard to have these discussions. I met with the Institute of Directors yesterday. I do not think that it is totally at one with the Bill, but it is more frightened because it does not know what is going to be in it. Indeed, we do not know what is going to be in it. The way to have good legislation is to introduce a Green Paper and a White Paper, and to allay those legitimate fears of business.

Vera Baird: We did, of course. The hon. Lady must have seen the extensive consultation, which went on over years, and the consultation document that summed up what we were going to do and tried to achieve a consensus. In the past six months, two documents have set out how business and other stakeholders reacted. There has been a pretty extensive consultation and a great deal of this has an element of consensus around it. Business is fairly chequered in its response, although up in the north-east, there have been some pretty positive responses on the basis that she has set out—it is understandable that there is no clash and that there is a benefit involved.
	We have consulted pretty extensively, but—this is probably more to the point—as we have gone along we have consistently been in touch with stakeholders. We have meetings practically weekly with stakeholders, either in a group or bilaterally when they have particular concerns. The hon. Lady does not need to worry about that and we look forward to sharing the Bill with hon. Ladies on the Opposition Benches when it is ready.

Lynne Featherstone: I agree with the hon. Gentleman—a plague on both their houses on that one—but I am talking about the private sector. If one looks at the Treasury, one might find that most of the top civil servants are of one gender. I am talking about the opportunity that we do not usually get. The single equality duty will apply to the public sector. The private sector and the 80 per cent. of people who are employed by it will not be adequately covered by the protections of the equality Bill in the way that the public sector will be, but I am simply saying that while we have the opportunity presented by nationalised or part-nationalised banks, as well as being busy sending in the auditors and the actuaries to work out how to strip certain directors of their pensions and to look at all the stuff that is going on, I hope that the Government Equalities Office will be sending in its own experts to benefit from this unique experience and understand what has been going on with equalities in those industries, as the Minister for Women and Equality, who is no longer in her place, said.
	As was said in the group discussion that I attended yesterday, some believe that, had women been more plentiful in the boardrooms of banks—

Judy Mallaber: It was our Committee that had to agree to the photographs being displayed in Portcullis House and, in fact, the Committee bought them with money from the fund for art works here. I hope that we will secure agreement for them to be displayed permanently in the House. I agree with the right hon. Lady about the work of the education unit. I believe that I am supposed to be involved in the making of a videotape about the suffragettes' struggle. It is important for us to commemorate our past and to think about how we got here, as well as thinking about our future.
	I was struck by what the Secretary of State said about how we should communicate the ways in which we seek to help people in the current economic downturn. She mentioned using  Take a Break magazine as well as debating it in  The Economist. It should be made clear that we are not merely trying to give special help to women—as was suggested at the beginning of the debate—but seeking to help all people and take account of their specific circumstances. We all know that many of our constituents do not know how to gain access to support and advice. It is important to provide that support and advice in different areas and in different formats, such as the pamphlet that I have with me now.
	I do not want to suggest that we know that women will be more or less affected than men when it comes to losing jobs. That will vary from area to area, depending on the gender and industrial make-up in those areas. In my constituency, jobs have recently been lost on the Conservative borough council, in a major manufacturing company and at Woolworths. I spoke to a couple who had worked at the manufacturing company. The woman had kept her job, while the man had lost his. One young man who had been made redundant after 12 years at the company came to see me with his mother and his grandmother, who said that when she had worked there many years earlier and there were redundancies, she had kept her job by agreeing to work full time. She had then realised that, as a result, one of the men would lose his job, because at that stage she was cheaper than he was. That position is no fairer than a position in which women suffer from unequal pay.
	The situation is fairly complex. As has been said, Woolworths and the distribution industry have many women employees; on the other hand, Morrisons has substantially expanded its work force. We need to consider the ways in which particular groups and areas are affected, and how we can help.
	I was pleased to be able to attend the women's summit yesterday. I sat at a fascinating table along with representatives of the legal profession, business, the public sector and the organisation Refuge. We agreed that what was likely to happen was unclear, but a number of relevant issues were raised—some of which have been mentioned today—such as benefits, working times and flexible working, provision for child care and domestic violence. I shall say more about some of them later, but I want to focus particularly on what we should do now to ensure that when we emerge from the downturn we are in a fit state to do so, both in terms of what the country needs and in terms of a better and fairer society and a better position for women in the context of many of the issues about which we have argued over the years.
	I was stimulated yesterday by a visit to the "big bang" event at the Queen Elizabeth II centre. I do not know whether any other Members visited it, but it celebrated science and engineering, and was aimed particularly at schools. Many school groups were there. A range of organisations had stands there, including the Met Office and Rolls-Royce, which is in my area. School pupils displayed the pioneering engineering work that they had done, which was to be judged later. I believe that the winners are off to Downing street today.
	I was inspired by that event. A group came down from Heanor Gate science college in my constituency. When I arrived at the centre, I discovered that that group was sponsored by Rolls-Royce, in the neighbouring Derby constituency. I was delighted to note that the science group included as many girls as boys. We have a problem enticing young people, and girls in particular, into engineering, manufacturing and science generally. I also went to the WISE stall—women into science and engineering—which was there to do various interactive things to encourage the girls there to take part. That was good.
	We need to look at what will happen when we come out of the downturn, both to ensure that we have people—men and women—with the skills that we need to fill those gaps, so that we are not on the back foot again and so that we come out in the strongest possible position, and to redress some of the imbalances in the skills people can acquire. The one thing that we should not do in the downturn is cut back on training and apprenticeships. I am delighted, therefore, at the programmes that the Government have put forward in those spheres. Indeed, I have positive examples from my constituency.
	I am concerned, however, by the Conservatives' plans to cut spending in the financial year 2009-10, so that they will maintain spending in some Departments but not in others. That means slashing skills, university and science budgets by £610 million and the non-schools budget of the Department for Children, Schools and Families by £300 million. My concern is that people over 19 starting an apprenticeship would not be able to do so. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said earlier that the Conservatives would finance a community learning programme by getting rid of Train to Gain. I do not have with me a copy of the debate on skills that I participated in last year, but I had example after example of the positive ways in which Train to Gain had been used by businesses. Just recently I gave out awards at the Acorn training centre in my constituency to the many people who had gained qualifications and training from the Train to Gain programme, which was very much welcomed by my local businesses. I therefore do not think that the Conservatives' way of re-jigging the budgets would help us to deal with the problem.

Judy Mallaber: I have many positive examples of what is taking place. I am afraid that the figures do not add up. The Conservatives cannot claim that they are going to cut overall Government spending programmes, yet maintain spending programmes in a number of Departments, and then say that nothing is going to go anywhere else. That does not have credibility.
	I recently visited Manthorpe Engineering in my constituency, which takes on four or five apprentices a year. This year nearly all the apprentices are male, which is something that I would like to redress. The apprentices train at Rolls-Royce to begin with—Manthorpe Engineering is part of the Rolls-Royce supply chain—and they then finish their apprenticeship with the company. Those are genuine apprenticeships, taking place over three or four years, which means that we are developing a younger, qualified work force who will have the skills to go through and be committed to the company. Rolls-Royce maintains its training in a downturn and is also positive at promoting women into jobs, apprenticeships and training. That is a key point.

Julie Morgan: I congratulate my hon. Friend on her report from earlier in the year. Does she agree that one way of attracting more women into apprenticeships would be to have part-time apprenticeships, which is something that the TUC supports?

Judy Mallaber: I agree with that; indeed, I was going to come to that point. Although I applaud the fact that training and apprenticeships are increasing, there are still a number of issues that we need to take on board, some of which have already been mentioned. I was going to refer to the report by the National Skills Forum, which was published last week, I think—it was meant to be published several weeks before that, but unfortunately the snow intervened. Indeed, my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General was one of the speakers at that launch.
	The National Skills Forum report, which was produced on behalf of the all-party group on skills, makes a number of points about the work-life balance and, in particular, makes proposals and recommendations about how to ensure that apprenticeships and training fit the needs of women. One of those proposals is to look at how we can increase the number of part-time apprenticeships. "Jobs for the girls", the report that we on the Select Committee on Trade and Industry produced —the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) was instrumental with me in putting that together—addressed that issue. We made the point that when Ofsted looks at the flexibility of courses, it should also take on board how to provide part-time courses and courses at times when women can access them.
	The National Skills Forum report also looked at increasing the financial support available to adult learners in further education and at how the benefits system can discourage carers from taking part in training. That is an important issue, which needs to be looked at more carefully. The difficulty of allowing the carer's allowance to be available—or not be available—to those on courses requiring more than 21 hours of study a week is something that we should perhaps look at again. Another issue is the different arrangements for financial help for part-time students in higher education from those for students on full-time courses.
	Another group that has been active in looking at the issue, and which gave evidence to our Select Committee, is the YWCA. Careers guidance has already been mentioned, and work experience is an important issue that we should look at in opening up opportunities. We are looking at how, when we come out of the recession, we might have made some advances, so that we have a broader range of skills and more diverse opportunities for people to obtain those skills.
	One of the YWCA's proposals for the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill—was it just last week that it was debated?—was for the National Apprenticeship Vacancy Matching Service to play a key role in ensuring that young people are offered as wide a range of apprenticeship options as possible. The YWCA suggested that a duty to promote and ensure equality should also be put on to the new bodies created by the Bill, so that they look at how to ensure that girls as well as boys can take up training opportunities.
	There is obviously a problem in apprenticeships. We all know that boys tend to be in the better-paid apprenticeships and that girls tend to be in the worse-paid ones. I would not necessarily want to stop girls from going into hairdressing—it is a portable skill that will do them well wherever they go in the world—but it is noticeable that those at the top of the profession are usually men. There are very good opportunities for men at the top of the profession, which the girls never seem to get towards.
	A load of reports have been put forward to consider the different things that we could to ensure that girls and women, including women returners, get the opportunity to enhance their skills in a different way. Now is not the time to cut back on that; now is the time to give it added impetus, and there is a range of things that we should look at. There are also projects under way at Sheffield Hallam university—on behalf of one of the Government Departments, I think—to look at science, technology, engineering and maths, or the STEM subjects, and at getting women into manufacturing. Using this opportunity to give that extra impetus would be very positive.
	The group at my table at the women's summit yesterday raised a number of issues, some of which have already been referred to, that are slightly broader than the positive issue of how we go forward. One was about how we ensure that advice gets to those who need it, which I have already mentioned.
	The issue of domestic violence has already been touched upon. The policy director of Refuge was at my table and talked about the potential for an increase in domestic violence. In fact, I noticed a report in the last couple of days about the Metropolitan police issuing figures in January that suggest that there has been a slight increase in domestic violence in the past year. The police are now looking into how stress from lost jobs could create tension in families.

Judy Mallaber: One of the problems with that approach, however, is that there will be less targeting to those who need the help the most. That is one of the difficulties in the proposals, but I am sure this will be a continuing, and lively, debate. Powerful points have, however, been made about the potential impact on children, and about the need to ensure child care is available, so that children do not suddenly lose their whole social circle and their environment if their mother is unable to afford it, perhaps because she has lost her job. We need to make progress on that. We need to make sure that we do not go backwards during the recession, but that we keep going forwards with the positive proposals that we have, and that we use them to try to make a fairer society and address some of the issues on which many of us have been campaigning for many years.
	In the women's summit group yesterday, it was made very clear that flexible working could be a positive way to help employers through the downturn, although there are also issues to do with how that affects benefits. There is a quote, which I cannot find now, from an article about Women Like Us, which operates at the primary school at the bottom of the road I live in when I am in London, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone). It is a wonderful quote about employers getting the benefit of employing somebody with a full brain at half price if they are working flexibly. What employers need is people with the capacity to work and who feel engaged and able to organise their lives. Flexible working can be of great benefit to employers, although it is, of course, also being used in a way that is not so beneficial to people, when companies are having to introduce short-time working. It is a mechanism for maintaining jobs over such periods, however, and employers should look upon flexibility as a way both of helping them deal with difficulties in the downturn and of making sure they get the most out of their employees. It is, potentially, a positive step for them, and we should not seek to go backwards on this. I hope that all Members present will want to make sure we pursue it.
	There are opportunities, therefore, as well as the difficulties we face. I hope we will use action on the skills agenda to try to ensure we come out of the recession with a better skilled and more diversely trained work force who are able to meet the challenges that all of us will face in our daily lives.

Eleanor Laing: That may well be the case. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley on the matters that he has raised, but I defend his right to make those points today, or any other day. However, his objections to this debate are not the usual objections to this debate or to international women's day. Some people, notably women of a certain generation, argue that feminism is a thing of the past, that the battles that started in the last century have largely been won, and that therefore we no longer need such debates or an international women's day. However, I think that that is a very narrow and selfish view of the world.
	The women who sit in this House, the women in our families and many of the women with whom we work are fortunate and privileged, because we have had the advantage of an equal education and other equal opportunities in our working life. Those of us who sit in the House also have the great privilege of being able to speak out for women. We must therefore remember that the vast majority of women live in countries with no equality, but considerable poverty and enormous health problems. Women in such countries are in no better a position than their predecessors a century ago. We must not forgo the chance—indeed, it is our duty—to stand up for those many millions of women and do what we can to improve their lives, as well as considering the lives of women in this country. I strongly refute the arguments of those who say that debates on women's issues should be a thing of the past. That is complacent in the extreme, because it is essential that we take the opportunity to speak up for women who need our moral, practical and financial support all over the world.
	I wish particularly to address the issue of maternal health. I appreciate that the motion before us concerns the effects of the recession, but if the effect of the current recession is to require the Government to cut public expenditure, I make a plea here and now that overseas aid for international development should not be the subject of cuts. There are many countries, especially in Africa, that utterly depend on the financial, practical and political support that they get from our Government, and it would be a tragedy if this Government's mismanagement of the economy meant that people in developing countries who desperately need our help were deprived of it.

Eleanor Laing: Yes, I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, and that is exactly the point. Although Home Office or police statistics on the reporting of domestic violence and the number of resulting convictions do not suggest that one in four—or even as many as one in three—women in the UK suffers domestic violence at some point in her life, the excellent work done by organisations such as Refuge shows that the proportion is in fact somewhere around 30 per cent.

Julie Morgan: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Any bank holiday that celebrated women would also, obviously, benefit men as well. I draw her attention to the fact that we have so few bank holidays in this country, and they are important. In Wales, we have failed to make St. David's day a public holiday—so far—but perhaps the Government might consider a public holiday that celebrated more than half the population.
	Today, we are looking at supporting women and families through the downturn in the economy, and looking to the future, and it is appropriate that we do so on international women's day. When we look at the history of international women's day, we are aware of the strikes by women garment workers in New York in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when they demanded better working conditions and rights. It is important that we use this day to debate this subject, and again, I would like to congratulate the right hon. and learned Lady and her team on making this such an important, high-profile issue this week.
	Why should the economic difficulties we are experiencing be different for women now than at other times in the past? As other Members have said, there are now more women employed in the workplace. In Wales, there is a small difference in the employment rates of men and women. There are 679,000 men in employment, compared with 589,000 women—a difference of only 90,000 people. We can see how the trends have been going; the employment rates of men and women are becoming more equal. It is hard to say how that will continue to develop, given the economic downturn, but there is no doubt that the pattern of employment in this country has radically changed. When we get over the downturn, I think it very likely that more women will end up being employed than men, and the implications of that for our pattern of family life are important to consider.
	The figures show that 8.3 per cent. of men in Wales are out of work, compared with 5.2 per cent. of women. We have to be very sceptical about those statistics, of course, because many women are not registered for work and do not claim jobseeker's allowance, so we do not know exactly how many women are out of work.
	Many women are in vulnerable jobs. Because so many more women are now in employment, and so many more families therefore depend on their income, women are much more vulnerable during the current problems than they have been in the past. Some 40 per cent. of women in Wales are in part-time work, compared with fewer than one in 10 men, and 29 per cent. of women are in low-paid work, compared with 16 per cent. of men. The fear is that part-time and low-paid staff will be disproportionately affected, as they might be seen as the easiest to get rid of. As was mentioned earlier, the last in may be the first out. Of course, women's employment tends to be focused on certain sectors. The catering, retail and service sectors have all been mentioned. It has also been said that all parts of the economy are being hit in the current recession, including the parts in which women in particular tend to work.
	The Government have made an admirable response to the difficult situation so far. They have gone out of their way to think of ways to help struggling families, and that is true of the Welsh Assembly Government as well as the Government here in Westminster. It is important that we shift the focus and consider the fact that the recession is affecting women as well as men. In my constituency, the Quality hotel in Tongwynlais suddenly closed, virtually overnight, after the chain that owned it collapsed, and many women were thrown out of work immediately.
	In Wales, we have set up a scheme called the ProAct scheme. It has been set up with great swiftness and is designed to provide funding for employers who are facing difficulties during the recession. The support is intended to help businesses to prepare for economic recovery by upskilling their work force while they are on short-time working and by retaining skilled staff who might otherwise be made redundant. The good thing about it is that it offers people the opportunity to gain skills while they are on short-time working or out of work altogether, instead of sitting at home. Importantly, it gives people the opportunity to take advantage of that time to train and improve their opportunities for employment when the inevitable upturn comes.
	However, ProAct is a pilot scheme, and it appears initially to have been aimed at the automotive industry. Its initial recipients will therefore probably be men. I urge the Government to ensure that any such schemes are equally available to women and spread over all sectors. I went to a meeting of the Federation of Small Businesses last night, and it said that it hoped that the scheme would be taken up in England as well. I know that the Prime Minister is considering doing that.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) said, now is the opportunity to prepare for the inevitable upturn by providing women with skills. That is why apprenticeships are important, and I feel strongly that we should try to make them less segregated. As I have said, we should encourage part-time apprenticeships to encourage older women and those with children to get involved. We all know that apprenticeships can be in various sectors, and the pay might be very high in one sector and pretty low in another. That dictates the pay gap that exists for the rest of people's lives. Apprenticeships are vital, and we must ensure that they are more equally divided. That can be done through work experience, which can make certain that girls and boys have experience of work that is non-traditional to their sex. That applies to boys and young men as well, as there are sectors in which it would be a huge advantage to have men involved. An example would be child care, as this would provide male role models for children from an early age. These are among the important things that we can do at this difficult time.
	The gender pay gap has been mentioned several times. It is difficult to bridge that gap, for reasons that I have already given. It is deeply embedded, and it will take a long time and a great deal of effort to do so. In Wales, it has got slightly worse, which is a matter of concern. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is working with Swansea university to investigate why the pay gap has worsened in Wales, and to determine whether it is just a blip or whether something fundamental is happening that would require an even greater effort to narrow the gap.
	It is also a matter of concern that there are more women than men on short-term, flexible contracts. It has already been pointed out that that might mean that employers are more willing to use such contracts during difficult times. There is also a great fear, however, that people employed on such contracts will be the first to go. The TUC is worried that women might be prepared to take jobs at almost any price, because they are so concerned about their families and children. The number of women who hold jobs that pay below the minimum wage is significantly higher than the number of men in such jobs.
	Women's jobs are vulnerable. We all know about the discrimination that pregnant women have suffered in the workplace, even before the economic downturn. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has given many examples over the years of pregnant women being discriminated against. This week, I heard a story about a woman in Cardiff who told her employer that she was pregnant. His response was, "I don't think you're meeting your targets at work." My fear is that such incidents will continue to happen, and we must do all that we possibly can to prevent them.
	It is also a fact that 90 per cent. of single-parent households are headed by women. We know that the way out of poverty is to enable people to work, and the Government have worked very hard to achieve that. The tax credit system has been targeted to help people, particularly low-income families in work, but if those jobs go, the families will be very vulnerable. We have made efforts to give more opportunities to lone parents, and it is important to ensure that those opportunities remain.
	Another area of concern is that of child care, which has already been raised today. There is no doubt that a number of child care businesses, where many women work, are vulnerable in these circumstances. In Wales, we have introduced the foundation phase, an early-years programme in which children learn through play until they reach six years of age. That programme has resulted in a big increase in the number of women being employed, because a lot of support workers have been taken on to work in small groups with children in the programme. That is an example of an increase in women workers, and I have no doubt that those people will stay in jobs.
	I mentioned informal child care in an earlier intervention. I do not know what the answer is, but I believe that the issue should be addressed. In Wales, two thirds of child care is done on an informal basis, by friends, grandparents or other relatives. That is often the most suitable kind of care, if people can get it, because it is flexible. The children know the family and families can be trusted; such care can take place around people's work. How people arrange finances, work and benefits around that is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) said earlier, something that we should look at. I believe that there would be huge benefits for the country as a whole if we enabled more women to be free to work as a result of their children being taken care of. That is an important issue.
	Wales has developed a number of policies that will stand up well during this recession. I particularly draw the House's attention to the fact that schools in Wales have free breakfasts available in their breakfast clubs, which are taken up in a significant number of cases. They run from early in the morning and the parents face no additional costs for the breakfasts; they provide another aspect of child care in difficult situations.
	I have some specific suggestions for the Government to take up. The Westminster Government should look at the ProAct scheme in Wales and see whether it can be extended to England. All schemes should be looked at in terms of their impact on women as well as men, and efforts should be made to extend them to women as well as men. Apprenticeship schemes should be viewed with reference to their availability to women. We also need to reflect more on informal child care.
	It is particularly important to protect the women's voluntary sector. I had a meeting yesterday with representatives from the women's voluntary sector, who feel under enormous threat at the moment. Part of the reason for that is the lack of understanding by local authorities of the funding for organisations that work only with women, along with their lack of understanding of their gender equality duties. I was extremely concerned to find that so many women's voluntary organisations felt that they were struggling in really difficult times. It is important to reflect more on that.
	Most importantly of all, we must keep going ahead with our equality agenda. Many Members have already said this in today's debate, but the recession must not in any way be used as an excuse to send women back to the kitchen; we will never go back to the old traditional family style with one male breadwinner and the woman based in the kitchen.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Julie Morgan: Did the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) want to intervene? No?

Eleanor Laing: rose—

Julie Morgan: I agreed to give way—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps we can avoid an auction. It would help if the hon. Lady said to which hon. Member she wishes to give way.

Julie Morgan: I agreed to give way to the hon. Member for Upminster.

Angela Watkinson: The hon. Lady is most kind in allowing me to intervene. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) has already made the point that I was going to make: some families choose for the mother to stay at home, which should be a perfectly valid choice. If they can afford to do that, we should not criticise them for it.

Anne Main: My hon. Friend made a valid point about 125 per cent. mortgages. When the Communities and Local Government Committee took evidence on the delivery of affordable houses, it became clear to us that the Government were driving more and more people towards the idea of buying homes—even if their incomes were much lower than those of most people entering the property market—while reducing the construction of social housing and affordable homes. An increasing number of people were encouraged to believe that their properties represented an ever-growing pension pot on which they could rely in their old age. That was something that the Government made much of.

Julie Kirkbride: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The other thing that needs to be said is this. Yes, we did have a wonderfully prolonged period of economic well-being and growth that started, as we on the Conservative Benches often say, well before this Government came to power, under the wonderful stewardship of the present shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). He handed over to this Government a golden economy—an economy that any incoming Government would have bitten your hand off for, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Government were pleased about that. One would have said until now that they had done jolly well in maintaining that economy, keeping inflation relatively low and interest rates at a reasonable level. Indeed, the Prime Minister encouraged that idea, with his incredibly hubristic boasts about how he had ended boom and bust. He said that many times at the Dispatch Box, and for a time even I started believing that somehow he had the magic wand to make things all right. I am meant to know a little about economics—I read a bit of economics at university—and in this House one is certainly expected to know a little about such matters. However, people outside were told by the then Chancellor that the "never had it so good" times were here to stay. They were told, in effect, "Don't worry, it's all going to be all right—we've cracked inflation and boom and bust. You can carry on assuming that you don't really have to save very much, because those rainy days that you used to have to worry about aren't going to come along." That was simply not true.
	It is therefore not surprising that people took out big mortgages that they could not afford and that were worth more than the houses that they were buying, so that they could add a new car or perhaps take a foreign holiday. We are still waiting—the press have been salivating for this all week—for the Prime Minister to come to the Dispatch Box and say sorry for encouraging people in the belief that things would be all right and that they did not have to take sensible precautions in their family budgets.
	It is also worth bearing in mind the fact that—I am sure that lots of hon. Members will make this point very eloquently when we have the debate on the economy next week—the then Chancellor and now Prime Minister is also culpable for changing the way in which we benchmark inflation. The housing market—historically, the biggest dynamic of inflation in the UK economy—was taken out of the official inflation rate, so that when the Bank of England set interest rates, it did not have to take into account the fact that the housing sector was on a roll. That has added to the nation's indebtedness, encouraged more people to take on debt, either for their homes or on their credit cards, and, sadly, helped to create the state that we are in today.

Lynne Featherstone: I was saying that as money is handed out to bail out any industry and as we move away from the banks—where I think there is universal agreement that there was no choice but to bail them out—and turn to the private sector, there is a legal duty on the Treasury and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to examine any substantive policy change. I submit that giving vast sums of money to any industry involves a policy change, so proposals need to be examined in that light. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that every case has to be judged on its economic benefits, but it might also be right to include a judgment of the equality benefits, to avoid unintended consequences if money always goes automatically to the most obvious case. However much of a rush we are in and whatever crisis we are in, that is something we should consider.

Julie Kirkbride: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for explaining her point a little further. There has been speculation that the Government will introduce a Bill that allows them to help businesses more directly and we could pursue that debate at that time.
	I want to add my voice on the gender pay gap, which has already mentioned by a many Members, but as we are predominantly women in the House today and as we feel particularly strongly about it, I do not want to exclude the subject completely from my speech. I was incredibly struck by the comment of the Minister for Women and Equality that although the gender pay gap is 17 per cent. across the UK economy in general, it is 44 per cent. in financial services, which is simply outrageous. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley might think that was a bit wrong. The statistics are a red rag to a bull. The men have all been bailed out for their recklessness, because one can only assume that the pay gap roughly means that the high rollers the men—the people—

Julie Kirkbride: Indeed. Those who earn loads of money in the dealing rooms and the high-value investment banking sector are men, with perhaps a smattering of women, but the people who will be feeling the cuts in the banking sector, in the struggle to find cost efficiencies and savings to rescue the industry, are presumably bank clerks on much lower salaries, which creates that huge discrepancy as females are made unemployed. A precious other income in the family budget is thus taken away, with the subsequent impact on the whole household. It is a very depressing picture.
	The Leader of the House was keen to tell us in her opening remarks that "fairness" was "at the very heart of what we do". I broadly accept that women's issues are close to the right hon. and learned Lady's heart, but I therefore simply do not understand why, given that there is much progress to be made on the gender pay gap, she has set her face against our pay audit proposal. It would not apply to all companies, because we have to be worried about the bureaucratic burden at present, given all the other worries about earning money that individual companies currently have. However, although there would not be an overall requirement for companies to conduct pay audits because that would be asking too much in the current economic climate and I would not want to have to justify it, I do not see why companies that have been taken to an employment tribunal and found guilty of an offence on equal pay grounds should not be obliged to do one, because I think that would be pretty reasonable punishment for what they have done, and it might encourage better practice in general. Perhaps we will further debate this when—and if—the famous equality Bill actually reaches the Floor of the House. We would be optimistic that we could persuade the Government on that measure.
	I want to talk about a group of people who have not been much mentioned yet, because we are rightly concerned about families and the vulnerability of children and the responsibility for them—which rests mainly on the shoulders of women, although men take their responsibilities in that regard as well. This other group of people is being really clobbered by the recession, and might be clobbered for a considerable period. This group is women pensioners. I am not talking about those who are poor enough to be eligible for the pension credit, which applies very low down the income scale, but those just above that. They are often now widowed and relying on the money they made as a family. They might hold a few shares in the banks—which are now almost worthless if invested in the wrong bank, but what a solid investment they used to be! So, savings that were held as bank shares have gone, although I am sure they were bought with the thought, "Well, it is the one sector that will be okay and that we can trust to buy shares in." If they are lucky enough to have put their savings into non-banking shares, their dividends will have decreased, along with the value of the investment; even if they have invested in blue-chip shares such as the supermarkets, they will be suffering.
	A lot of these people will, of course, simply have their savings in cash, and almost no interest at all is being paid on such investments. Added to the insult of pretty much no interest being paid on them, someone sitting at home with not a lot to do will be worried stiff about whether the cash that they hold in the bank is now safe. Indeed, there have been moments in the past few months when that was a legitimate worry, and I would certainly urge any of my constituents to make sure they are cognisant of the Financial Services Authority guarantees on cash deposits, so they can be absolutely reassured that their savings are safe.
	This category of people was relying on dividend income and the interest on their bank savings to top up their pension and not only to pay for the holiday, or running the car, or for other things that are considered a luxury by many retired people, but in many cases also to pay the council tax or their regular food or fuel bills. That income has disappeared. Also, as a Labour Member pointed out earlier, the Government currently assume the interest received on savings held in banks at a ridiculous level—some 10 per cent. That rate simply cannot be found for any investment vehicle anywhere in the country, or the world.
	So these people are really suffering. They cannot fall back on pension credit if they are within those parameters, because their savings are deemed to earn more interest than they can ever possibly secure. There are those who are just above that level but who are still finding it very hard. These people did not have it so good even when it was so good, because they were not in the market earning better salaries; they were living on fixed incomes. They had been clobbered over the past 10 years by whacking great increases in council tax—in my area it has more than doubled. They struggled to find that money and now they will struggle even more, and I feel greatly for them.
	It is only a modest measure because interest rates are so low—0.5 per cent. as of midday today, when the Bank of England made its announcement—but it is at least a sign that we are concerned, so I very much hope that the Government introduce in their Budget our idea that for basic rate taxpayers the interest on savings should be tax-free. We have to do something to increase the savings ratio. The recession will help that, because people are scared and they want to save money to pay the bills. If I look at that little list of culpabilities, which I mentioned earlier—

John Bercow: It is, of course, a very sad state of affairs that we have reached a position in which we have to contemplate and, indeed, give the go-ahead to quantitative easing, but does my hon. Friend accept that it might now be the least worst option? Is it not significant that no lesser a monetarist economist than the distinguished Patrick Minford, from the university of Liverpool, has said that it is the right thing to do in the circumstances?

Ann Cryer: It is a great pleasure to be in the Chamber again for what has been an excellent debate. This might be my last debate celebrating international women's day and I admire the fortitude of the three male Opposition Members who have been present for much of the time. However, I must remind the Opposition that their party has a much larger proportion of male Members than ours has. I appreciate the presence of the hon. Gentlemen, particularly since one of them is my own MP. However, my own party has a couple of male Members present now.
	It is also excellent to hear from other hon. Members who have been to Africa. We have heard about visits to Uganda and Zambia: I visited Kenya in October, and I think that our experiences of the position of women are very similar. I was deeply concerned to learn that female genital mutilation is still a problem in Kenya. The men do not like to talk about it, but I managed to extract some information on what is a pretty awful practice. Anything that we in this House—and especially the women here—can do to discourage that sort of activity in African countries will be appreciated by women there.
	We may also achieve greater diversity. At least two of my colleagues from the Speaker's Conference on diversity are present in the Chamber. We will all work together to achieve greater diversity and, although I am not sure how that will happen, I certainly hope that it will.
	This debate is about supporting women through the economic downturn and into the future. Women are now getting support from Sure Start, extended school hours, the minimum wage, tax credits and the availability of flexible working. Many of those things are likely to disappear or wither on the vine if the Opposition get elected.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House has said that women must know their rights, but many do not. In that regard, I want to ask a question that many people consider to be something of a taboo subject—although that has never stopped me before. How many women from various ethnic communities where cousin marriages are the norm are aware of the availability, free through the NHS, of genetic counselling and screening prior to marriage? I have been unable to persuade the Bradford and Airedale teaching primary care trust of the need to make the availability of those services known through advertising in medical and community centres, hospital out-patient and accident and emergency departments, or even in schools. It just will not do so, believing that the subject is too politically incorrect.
	As always, my concern is for the very young women who have entered this country as young wives. They have no English and are very vulnerable. In some families, they go on producing children even after having given birth to children with severe problems. Often, they get little help from the in-laws who arranged the marriage. Those young women, most of whom come from Mirpur in Pakistan, are the victims of a rural culture. I want to emphasise that this problem has nothing to do with religion or the fact that they are Muslims, but that it is just what happens in the rural culture from whence they come.
	Some so-called community leaders—all of them men—argue that consanguinity has no impact on the number of children born with severe disabilities, and I agree that such children are born to couples who are not related and that many perfectly healthy children are born to cousins. However, the statistics reveal that, although 2 per cent. of children from all communities are born with genetically transmitted disorders, the percentage doubles to 4 per cent. in the communities that favour first-cousin marriages.
	I am absolutely not asking that cousin marriages be outlawed. I simply want us to discuss the matter and to encourage PCTs to make known the availability of genetic counselling and screening. That could be an enormous help for these young women who, as I said, are not aware that such services are available.
	I shall try to be brief, but I should like to pay tribute to the paediatricians of Bradford and Keighley, who are so expert in diagnosing and caring for children with diseases that are often very rare. I should also like to put on record my appreciation of the introduction by my Government of the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007.

Philip Davies: I am proud to be the hon. Lady's Member of Parliament; she is incredibly courageous and has done an awful lot on such issues, speaking out when other people would not have done, and she deserves huge praise. On first-cousin marriages and the health problems that flow from it, does she agree that the Born in Bradford scheme, which is taking place in hospitals in Bradford, will hopefully lead to more information being known on the subject, so that the problem can be tackled better?

John Bercow: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), with whom I have made common cause on a number of issues in recent years, and to whose courageous contribution I listened with immense respect.
	I would like narrowly to focus my remarks on the national minimum wage, to the compelling case for the introduction of which I long ago publicly converted. Before its introduction, too many people suffered too much for too long with too little done to help them. Since its inception, it is estimated that approximately 1 million people a year benefit from the annual uprating, of whom no less than two thirds are women. It is worth emphasising to boot that for those beneficiaries of the national minimum wage who are sole earners, it has been especially significant. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that its introduction has been an economic kiss of life to significant numbers of women who were struggling at the margins, and of whom it cannot reasonably be said that they lived their lives; they rather fought daily to continue to exist. That is a dramatic achievement.
	It is instructive to look at the reports of the Low Pay Commission. Its sixth report, published in 2005, observed—probably en passant, while raising all sorts of other points—that although it was not the prime rationale for the introduction of the national minimum wage that it should reduce the gender pay gap, in practice it had had a major impact on that gap. That is especially true at the lower end of the income scale.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) referred to the sharp disparities in income in the financial services sector, and I think she would almost certainly be right in surmising that the sharp disparities are especially sharp at the upper end of the scale. It is to the credit of the Government that for people at the bottom of the pile, the introduction of the national minimum wage and the constant increase in its rate has had the effect of narrowing that gap.
	The ninth report of the Low Pay Commission in 2008 significantly observed that the evidence demonstrated that there was no adverse impact upon employment as a result of the introduction of the wage or from its annual uprating, in contrast to the predictions of the doom-mongers, among whom I readily number myself. It is easy to be convinced by one's own rhetoric, or drenched in one's own propaganda, and for an indefinite period of time to be convinced of one's own preconception. I admit that I thought the introduction of the minimum wage would be hazardous, that it would lead to terrible consequences, that there would be a huge increase in unemployment and so on, and that has not proved to be the case, principally because the Government were politically and economically savvy enough to introduce it at a relatively low rate and then to look gradually and affordably to increase it.
	The point that I want to make today in relation to the level of the wage, in the context of economic downturn and the particular problems that beset women, is this: I recognise that every year the Low Pay Commission looks at the wage, the state of the economy and what scope there might be for an affordable increase. It normally makes its recommendation to Government in February, with a view to the uprating taking effect in October.
	As the Solicitor-General knows, this year the Low Pay Commission has sought permission from the Government, which was sensibly granted, to take a little longer in its consideration of the economic numbers before making a recommendation as to what, if any, increase there should be. My understanding is that the Low Pay Commission intends to furnish its advice to Government by May this year, though importantly and justifiably there is to be no delay in the annual uprating taking effect. That should take effect, if there is to be such, in October.
	Over the past 10 years there has been a compound increase in the national minimum wage of roughly 59 per cent., if my arithmetic serves me correctly. Several years have witnessed increases of 4 per cent. or thereabouts, although I think I am right in saying that in 2001—I pluck that arbitrarily from the annals of election history; I am sure it was purely a matter of serendipity that there was an election in 2001—the Government chose to increase the national minimum wage by about 10 per cent. There are people who will say to Government, "It is very difficult. Times are tough. We can't afford very much. Let's have a stay on the increase of the wage or increase it only very modestly."
	I want to lob into the debate the radical but alternative suggestion that the Government should consider a sharp increase in the national minimum wage this year. That would conduce to the economic good, it would greatly increase the spending power of people who are languishing at the bottom of the economic pile, and there is every chance that it would be capable of being afforded by the public purse. I observe in passing that the public will be both bewildered and horrified by the massive public largesse that is shelled out in the direction of failed, incompetent and greedy bankers who have to be paid huge fortunes to go off, and are apparently not remotely embarrassed about taking such great departure payments.
	It surely should not be beyond our economic competence or our moral sense to say of those who receive the national minimum wage, "These are people who are really struggling. Let's give them a sharp increase." From £5.73, we could increase the minimum wage by 10 per cent.—57p or thereabouts—to £6.28 or thereabouts. I hope that the Government will seriously consider that, and I challenge all the political parties to accept that there would be a powerful ethical case for behaving in that way.
	That deals with the subject of the national minimum wage and its prospective increase, but there is another related issue concerning the large numbers of people, among whom women are disproportionately represented, who are currently paid below the national minimum wage. That has been referred to once or twice—and only once or twice—in the course of this afternoon's debate. It is important to put it on the record that when that happens it is not merely undesirable, unethical or unreasonable, but palpably illegal. There ought to be some sense of moral outrage in the House if employers are paying people below the minimum wage. My understanding is that the annual survey of hours and earnings undertaken under the auspices of the Office for National Statistics showed that in 2008 no fewer than 185,000 women—1.4 per cent. of the female work force—were being paid below the national minimum wage. That is, frankly, an unconscionable state of affairs.
	I recognise that, not least through the device of the Employment Act 2008, the Government have committed a considerable resource for the purposes of publicising people's entitlements and facilitating an effective enforcement regime for the national minimum wage. If memory serves me correctly, the Government are currently spending about £850,000 a year on publicity and something in the region of £7 million a year on enforcement. It is absolutely right that that should happen. My anxiety is that when times are tough, there can be an inadvertent green light for the skinflint, the rogue, the cowboy to behave even worse than he would otherwise be inclined or feel able to. If this House exists for no other purpose, it must surely exist, convene and debate with a view to extending the greatest possible protection to the disadvantaged people in our community. We should always strive to help most those who have least.
	I hope that the Solicitor-General will say to her right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform that they should keep a close watch on this budget and see whether, from time to time, it might be necessary even to increase it. I recollect that the Government established the vulnerable worker enforcement forum, which was a useful opportunity to exchange views about what needed to be done. I suspect that a greater resource will be required, and there will be people who will try to renege on their responsibilities. This is a big problem, particularly for women and not least for home workers, who are notoriously difficult to track and whose ill treatment is especially difficult to identify and expose. That problem must be addressed.
	I know that the hon. and learned Lady will understand when I say that among home workers there is another factor—that of ethnicity. Significant numbers of people from the ethnic minority communities work as home workers. Let us be clear: there is a difference between people in this House, in the political class, whose familiarity with the regulatory regime, with entitlements, with what is due, with the legal position, is quite strong, and people out there, especially those for whom English is an additional language, who are more often than not, I would go so far as to say, unaware of their rights or, because of the economic circumstances in which they find themselves, frankly too frightened to claim and insist upon them. It is not good enough simply to respond in a legalistic sense. One very senior colleague in my own party once said to me, "Well, this is a matter to be pursued in a legal manner, John—it is not something about which we need to make speeches or anything of that kind. If people are dissatisfied with the way in which they are being treated, of course they have legal recourse." I am afraid that that sort of reactive approach simply will not do.
	I want to finish by saying that I applaud the national minimum wage and its continued uprating. It seems to me that it is economically justified, it is morally right, and for whichever party wins the next election it has to be an integral part of a counter-poverty strategy. In saying that, I emphasise that it is critical to the fight against poverty both of women and of children as well. There is a long way to go and I hope that we will see real and meaningful progress in the years ahead.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), and he made an interesting case about increasing the minimum wage.
	I start by reassuring the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), who is not in her place, that she should not read too much into the change in the title of today's debate. Building an economy for the future is very much on the Government's agenda and my party recognises that we need to include women fully in building that new economy. Given what I have heard from those in the Conservative party this afternoon, they do not seem to understand in any way the global determinants of the recession that we are in, and therefore I have no idea how they will construct a new, properly functioning economy that will meet people's needs.
	I recognise that it is not just women who are suffering in the economic downturn. Obviously, men are suffering as well. Nevertheless, we meet today to debate issues relating to international women's day, and it is worth taking time to reflect on the impact of the recession on families, particularly women, especially as so much time has been spent considering the actions of the mostly male bankers who got us into this situation in the first place. Much as I really do not want to dwell on them today, I want to say something on that subject a little later.
	We know from research conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Government Equalities Office that the economic downturn has affected women in particular ways. The results are interesting, but perhaps not surprising. It noted that 75 per cent. of British adults were concerned about the impact of the economic downturn on family life, but notably, 80 per cent. of women were concerned and 70 per cent. of men. It is also perhaps not surprising that in the discussion groups that were part of the research, men tended to focus more on who was to blame for the downturn, rather than on dealing with the aftermath. Unfortunately, that finding has not been replicated in the Chamber this afternoon. I counted the amount of time that hon. Ladies in the Opposition spent looking at the impact of the downturn on families, and the amount of time that they spent trying to blame the Prime Minister for the recession. About two thirds of their time was spent trying to blame someone, and about a third was spent on considering the impact on families.
	The results of the research showed some variation according to age, employment sector and social grades in the extent to which people consider the impact of the recession on families. Some 33 per cent. of men were worried about losing their job compared with 40 per cent. of both women and men who thought that unemployment was one of the main issues facing the country.
	I shall digress for a moment or two to take up a point that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) made. We were in danger of becoming a little more depressed than we needed to be about people's feeling that women's jobs may be the first to go. I also want to cheer up the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who is sitting alone on the Liberal Democrat Benches, by saying that the situation is perhaps not as bad as we have been led to believe.
	A finding of the GEO research was that both men and women believed that it was important that the jobs of family breadwinners were preserved first. The survey did not actually specify that they had to be male breadwinners. However, when people were asked whether it was
	"important to make sure all employees and workers are treated fairly when it comes to redundancy",
	some 94 per cent. of men and 95 per cent. of women said that it was more important to be fair than to protect the breadwinner's job. That is an important finding, and it is different from the position as the hon. Member for Forest of Dean stated it. It means that people want fairness during the recession, not only in redundancies but in the policies that are put forward to tackle the problems.
	A particularly interesting finding of the research was the high level of concern about the recession among young people. Its authors put that down to the fact that young people had not witnessed a recession before. However, older people, more than others, believed that their personal financial circumstances would worsen in the next financial year. It is interesting that young people are very concerned about the recession but do not believe that it will have an immediate impact on them. That may have something to do with the fact that the Government have continued to put a great deal of money into education, skills and training to try to protect young people from the effects of the recession as much as possible.
	Concerns about the price of food and utilities were, of course, mentioned more frequently by women respondents, and the most worried were women with children and those with caring responsibilities for elderly or disabled relatives—in other words, those who had caring responsibilities of any kind. Some groups of respondents also reported that family life had been made worse by the economic downturn. Interestingly, the women who highlighted financial concerns were particularly those who rely mostly on a male wage. One might think that perhaps they felt that they had less control over the family income.
	What makes this recession different from others is that women now comprise 45.8 per cent. of the economically active population. I suppose that that is why we are considering the matter today. For the first time, it very likely that women will lose their jobs in considerable numbers. We need to ensure that arrangements are in place to get those women help and support from their jobcentre. Their need for retraining and re-employment must be seen as being as important as men's.
	The research that I have mentioned is very recent, having been conducted in February. It probably concurs with what all of us who have been knocking on doors, telephoning our constituents and speaking to them have found in the past few months. We know that many women are trying to keep a family together through these difficult times and that they are worried about being able to put food on the table and pay bills and about losing their home. They are also concerned about the impact on their families of having to scale back on treats such as holidays or trips to the cinema. Women are experiencing a great deal of distress as a result of trying to keep some of those positive aspects of family life going at this difficult time.
	About one third of women—compared with a quarter of men—thought that the quality of family life had been reduced because of the economic downturn. Nevertheless, many of the women I speak to recognise the huge support that the Government have given to families through tax credits and increases in child benefit. That was noticeably not mentioned by the Conservatives this afternoon because, as they probably do not want to recall, child benefit did not increase in line with inflation under the previous Conservative Government. Perhaps they should have applauded this Government for having supported family life in a way that the Conservatives have not done so far.
	Also, there are now better schools, so parents do not have to worry so much about their children's education, and many parents benefit from the Sure Start children's centres in their communities, not just as places that provide additional resources and facilities for children, important though that is, but as places that give much-needed support, counselling and health advice to mothers, including young mothers, and that point them towards other sources of support in their community.
	Many families are also benefiting from the Childcare Act 2006, which was introduced by this Government, and under which local authorities have a responsibility to secure adequate child care provision in their area and to ensure that it is of good quality and meets the needs of the local population. That represented a huge step forward by the Government. I am not saying that all the problems relating to child care and affordable child care have been solved by that legislation, but it represents a huge step forward, and I think that there could have been more recognition of that today.
	Lastly, I want to talk about domestic violence. We hear women talking about a reduction in the quality of family life, and there is also a wide recognition throughout society that domestic violence can increase in times of recession. That is a matter of great concern to all of us. We should also note, however, that the landscape of domestic violence and the way in which it is tackled in our society has changed massively in the past few years. That is very much as a result of the efforts of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General who has run very successful campaigns to change the law on domestic violence. I know that she wants to take the legislation further.
	These changes have meant that in my own area, for example, there is now specific training for police forces in dealing with domestic violence, and there is widespread recognition by all the key agencies that sit on the multi-agency task groups that they have to work together, to share information, and to be very sympathetic to the victims of domestic violence and do everything that they can to minimise its effects on women and children. In particular, they have to try to protect their housing, if that is possible. I know that domestic violence is a real problem, and that it presents a real threat, but we will have to see how the improved services for dealing with it play out over the coming months.
	I also want to say something about the Government's "Real help now" campaign. We have all raised various problems connected with the economic downturn and it is right to have done so this afternoon. We all recognise what women and families are experiencing as a result of the downturn, but it would be very wrong to suggest that nothing is being done to help families cope or to support businesses at this time. I have listened to what Conservative Members have said and noted their reluctance to acknowledge some of the steps the Government have taken to minimise the effects of the recession on families and businesses. I am not sure that that is very helpful in the overall context of getting information to people so that they do not have to suffer unnecessarily.
	The "Real help now" campaign for families points to the following: £145-worth of tax cuts for every basic rate taxpayer; an additional £60 given to pensioners this winter; VAT cuts worth about £200 to every family; £3 billion of investment to protect jobs; and a £75 above- inflation increase in the child element of tax credit from April 2009, which could be worth a lot to some families, particularly those on the lowest incomes from earnings.
	I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), but the suggestion of the Lib Dems that we should have a cut in tax credits and other multi-million pound cuts to public services is no way of helping families that are feeling the pinch.

Lynne Featherstone: I must reply and refute that suggestion. The cuts that the hon. Lady mentions apply to things such as identity cards, not to front-line services.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: As I understand it, the Liberal Democrats announced cuts to tax credits just last week, and I am saying that that will be of no help to families that are feeling the pinch at this particular time. It is also worth remembering that the Labour party has made tremendous advances on maternity pay and maternity leave, and although I know there is still some way to go, I feel that that should be acknowledged this afternoon.
	We know that many women are concerned about the increased risk of losing their homes, but help is available and more of it is coming on stream in April 2009.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: As the hon. Gentleman will know, I am not a member of the Government so I could not possibly answer that question.
	As I was saying, a lot of women are concerned about losing their home. It is important that we try to concentrate on the real issues that are affecting people, not the parliamentary tittle-tattle that we have heard from Conservative Members. The mortgage rescue scheme is designed to help to stop people losing their home through repossession. Indeed, building societies and other lenders have been asked to consider repossession only as the last option.
	Also, we know that many women will benefit from the increased investment in the public sector. Therefore, unlike the opposition parties, which seem determined to make cuts in public services, we realise that women rely—disproportionately, sometimes—on public services for help with child care, caring for elderly relations, help with benefits and, of course, training and education.
	I am particularly pleased that, in my own region, £6 billion of public spending has been allocated and brought forward to deliver infrastructure projects. That is crucial, because it will support jobs in the regional economy. Indeed, the investment is directly related to regeneration and supporting jobs and skills in some of the sectors that we need to develop in the future, such as renewable energy and, I hope, a new generation of low energy use cars.
	I also want to emphasise the fact that the Government are listening to women's concerns and the concerns of families at this time. That is much to do with the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Women and Equality, who, with her ministerial team, has shown tremendous determination to focus Government attention on the issues that matter to families.
	To respond to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), we see the ministerial team taking forward the equality Bill. As we know, it is intended as consolidating legislation, but nevertheless legislation that will create a new equality duty on public bodies to ensure that the public sector pays due regard to equality when buying goods and services. It will provide additional funding to support the work being done by the trade union equality representatives and consider how Parliament can become more representative of society as a whole. I hope that that answers the question that the hon. Lady raised about whether there really is determination on this side of the House to take those issues forward.
	I hope, too, that the hon. Lady agrees that the fact that we have the Bill coming before the House should be supported by all parties. It will also help us to achieve greater flexibility in the work that is available to women and men and enable us to consider whether, as a society, we do enough to promote the rights of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people.
	I return for a moment to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Women and Equality, because in addition to acknowledging that she has done a great deal to promote the rights of women and families—both in the House and outside it—I want to say that she has also had the guts to stand up to the bankers. She should be thoroughly applauded for making it absolutely clear that they must pay back their outrageous bonuses. After all, she has simply voiced publicly what many people feel: that huge pensions of £700,000 per year are simply immoral, and should not be tolerated. My constituents have told me that they want the Government to take action, including using any money that is clawed back from bonuses or pensions for front-line services to support families, particularly when a family member has lost a job.
	I think that the stance adopted by my right hon. and learned Friend has been really strong and really courageous. I simply do not understand why the media have responded to her as they have. It seems to me that if they want to support hard work and decency—although I am a bit sceptical about that—they should support her campaign to make bankers, and others who have received outrageous bonuses, recognise that they owe it to society to pay much of the money back.
	My right hon. and learned Friend supported all of us who want to create a much fairer society and—when we emerge from the present economic recession, as we will—an economy that is also fairer, paying more attention to the need to care not just for our society but for the planet as a whole, and to ensure that future employment is, as far as possible, in green energy or elements of industry that do not pollute the planet.
	It would be something really worth celebrating on international women's day if today, in this Chamber, we undertook to concentrating our collective will on the task of producing an economy that is fair throughout the world: an economy that does not exploit developed countries, does not exploit workers at home, and does not exploit the planet.

Maria Miller: The hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not give way; a number of other hon. Members want to contribute and time is running out.
	The adverse implications of the recession for women are broad and far-reaching. I would like to bring the House's attention to a number of areas, particularly the impact on the family. We know that the loss of a job will mean the loss of income. Relate has done a great deal of research into the impact of a loss of income on families and the pressures that it can exert. Relate's figures show that money and money worries can be the top cause of arguments among couples. Indeed, almost one third of couples who divorce do so because of financial problems or problems with financial management. Extensive research has been done elsewhere, particularly in the US, to show that financial pressures can be tremendously destructive for families. That is something that we need to pick up on.
	The second issue that I want to address is the impact on the long-term development of child care, a point that was picked up well by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). Without good-quality, available and affordable child care—such care has expanded tremendously in recent years, which is one good thing that has happened in the past decade—women's role in the workplace will continue to be limited.
	Before the recession hit, there were already tremendous concerns about the viability of the child care sector that has developed in the UK. Since 2003, there has been a 68 per cent. increase in the number of day-care places closing and over the past decade there has been a 40 per cent. fall in the number of child minders. There has been an increase in the number of vacancies in day-care centres; the National Day Nurseries Association said that four in 10 nurseries are experiencing bad debt problems and half of all nurseries report a noticeable change in child care usage. All those changes took place before the recession hit, so the Government should look carefully at how we can ensure that the expansion of child care is sustained and does not wither away under what Labour has said will be a recession of the gravest kind.
	As we have already heard, another reason why the child care sector will be struggling relates to problems with the child care element of the working tax credit. In an earlier intervention, I mentioned my concern about the Government's lack of action on something that could demonstrably support families at this very difficult time. We need to look at how we can sustain private nurseries, so that when women come back into the workplace, they will find good-quality child care. It is deeply concerning that almost two thirds of private nurseries are still not being paid the full cost for delivering the Government's free entitlement to child care. We are still many months—if not years—away from resolving that issue.
	How can we improve the situation for women? I shall keep my comments brief as other Members want to contribute. We need fundamentally to reduce the vulnerability of women in an economic downturn such as this. A clear way of doing so is by normalising many of the family-friendly policies that Members have talked about today. Whether it is parental leave or flexible working, we need to make sure that the policies are not just for women but for families—men and women together—to look after their children in the future. By doing that, we could help to take away that feeling of vulnerability and take the spotlight off women in these difficult times.
	Another thing the Government need to consider far more carefully is how we can help support families through this difficult time. The Conservatives have announced robust policies to point newly-weds towards family support through the registrar system. I urge the Government to do as we have done and look at the work of organisations such as the Bristol Community Family Trust, where people such as Harry Benson are delivering good, solid support for families suffering relationship problems in these difficult times. Of course, the Government need to do everything they can to ensure that child care is sustainable in the future. We cannot ignore the growing problems in that area.
	The measures I have outlined would really help to support women and families, and make the UK the sort of family-friendly place we would all like it to be. Even more important, they would make sure that the talents of every person in the country can come to the fore. If we do not do that, this country will not be the success we need it to be in the future.

Dari Taylor: I am grateful to be called to speak. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) who has replaced me in Westminster Hall, where I was supporting the Minister responding to the debate on the report "A Life Like Any Other? Human Rights of Adults with Learning Disabilities".
	I was heartened by the contributions of both Front-Bench speakers at the start of this debate. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Women and Equality outlined the staggering number of policies introduced by my Government that have most definitely changed the lives of many women. Equally, I was pleased to hear the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) open with a constructive and careful analysis of what is required by industry if it is to grow, and how that growth will ensure good employment.
	I was taken aback by that statement for the simple reason that I was unemployed during the 1980s. Although I made many applications I did not succeed in getting a job for some time. I remember all too well the statements members of the Conservative Government made to me and the other 4 million people who were unemployed. Lord Tebbit told us to get on a bike and find work. Others in the Conservative party said unemployment is a price "worth paying". I was, therefore, pleased to hear the right hon. Member for Maidenhead open the debate in such a constructive way, but sadly for her I also remembered the statements of the shadow Conservative health spokesman, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who in November 2008 wrote in his blog that recession can be "good for us". That was a very disappointing and thoroughly unacceptable statement, and it made the right hon. Lady's warm and constructive words seem nothing more than warm words—and also unconstructive ones.
	I want to talk about some very ordinary and definitely low-paid women and families who live in my constituency. The Church of England "Thrive" project of the Church Action on Poverty group has started up in one of my deprivation areas, Thornaby. It brought to my attention—and is bringing to the attention of many other Members—the fact that many ordinary people on low incomes or benefits believe that the only way they can purchase essential goods is to buy them from doorstep salesmen. I wish to make it clear that these doorstep salesmen are not behaving illegally: Buy As You View, a company that was brought to my notice, is not behaving illegally, but it is exploiting very vulnerable people. The project has brought it to my attention that ordinary people are paying interest rates of 40 per cent. and upwards of 100 per cent. for goods that are essential to them. An example was given to me. There is a family of a lady who looks after two disabled adults. She bought a fridge and a washing machine. The actual price of those items was probably in the region of £300, but she paid more than £3,000. Obviously, she needed both items.
	It is more than time that we looked at this situation. Therefore, I ask my Government what they are doing about it. It is long overdue that action is taken. Ordinary folks sign up to agreements because they are desperate, and they might pay over two or three years and end up with astronomically high interest rates. They rarely understand the small print of these agreements. Nobody is there to explain it to them. Desperation forces them to sign, as they need the goods. It is long overdue for someone to step up and say, "No more small print; when you sign up, you must know exactly what you're signing up to." The Government and the local authorities can move in very neatly to stop this exploitation. There are trading standards departments, but they have no authority to investigate these companies or to issue warnings. We should use trading standards; that is long overdue. They are there to be used, and want to be used, to ensure that ordinary folk on limited incomes or tight budgets who are buying essential goods are not exploited in this way.
	My Government and the House could also support the credit unions in a significantly more persuasive way. We should give them some status and get them more confidently located in our communities, so that people know they can go to a group they can trust, and that they will pay no more than an appropriate sum, and not the exorbitant rates that have been outlined by Church Action on Poverty. Now is also the time to say to the banks, "Provide a service to these people. You have the opportunity to do so. They are high risk and low wage, but they are capable of paying back." We need the banks to work accordingly.
	I am conscious of the time, and of the fact that other Members wish to speak. I wanted also to talk about the fact that women are not very visible in the world of apprenticeships and high-skilled labour. It is, again, more than time to address that. We are talking about the economy, and we should talk about women having such good, skilled, highly paid jobs, giving them some stability of employment. I do not have time to address this, but I say to my Government that these are crucial issues to women's lives. We are talking about economic downturn, of course, but we should also talk practically about the circumstances of many ordinary families, and support them.

Angela Watkinson: I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is not in his place, because I want to start by agreeing with his intervention in the opening speech when he pointed out that the economic downturn affects everybody and not just women. In a way, it grieves me that we need to have this debate, because women are 50 per cent. of the population, if not slightly more. I venture to suggest that we probably do slightly more than 50 per cent. of the work.
	I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) is in her place, because I want to disagree with her. She said that women think differently and do things differently. I could not agree with her less. I like to think that we are all, male or female, individuals. There is an enormous spectrum of behaviour and opinion, and sweeping generalisations about enormous groups of people can be a bit inaccurate.
	The one really significant difference between men and women is that women have children and men do not. I want to concentrate my remarks on how that affects women's working and social lives. There is an inextricable link between women's reproductive lives and their financial welfare, and that is the root of the problems that all the previous contributions to the debate have described. What we need is fair treatment, and what we do not want is positive discrimination.
	I want to concentrate on one aspect of the debate that has not yet been mentioned today: unplanned teenage pregnancies. When that happens, the girl's economic future is in ruins. We need to look at the reasons why the incidence of unplanned teenage pregnancy in this country is so high. I understand that in 2007, which is the last year for which statistics are available, there were in the region of 8,000 unplanned teenage pregnancies, three quarters of which were to girls under the age of 15. We need to look very seriously at why that is happening and at what we can do about it.
	One reason for those pregnancies is a lack of aspiration and ambition among girls who have been brought up in workless households, where they have been shown no good example or good practice, where there is no work ethic and where the parents might not have had a good experience at school, have not achieved and have not gone on to further and higher education. We need to do much more for those girls, who think that the easy route to life with a free flat and free benefits is to have a baby. They do not realise how isolating and difficult that life will be or that it is not nearly as glamorous as they thought. Living in isolation in a council flat with the responsibility of a baby 24 hours a day is not a glamorous lifestyle option. We need to give these girls aspiration and ambition so that they can move forward in their lives and leave having families until they are emotionally and financially secure and mature enough to handle it.
	In the 1950s, careers advice for girls in schools went along the following lines: there were only two respectable occupations for girls, which were teaching and nursing. A girl who did not want to do either of those things was a lost cause. Thank heavens that careers advice is very different now and that the whole spectrum of employment is available and open to girls. They need to be encouraged to consider jobs that have either not been traditionally for women or have not been favoured by women in the past. The television programmes about cooking at the moment feature a range of male chefs, which might encourage boys to follow cooking as a career. We need to get away from gender stereotyping in the employment world.
	I tried to bring in a ten-minute Bill last year that would have obliged anybody who gave advice to an under-age child—that is, a child under the age of 16—on contraception or abortion to inform the parents first. It was a very small proposal, and I thought that it was a very common-sense Bill to introduce. I was taken aback by the opposition to it and it did not proceed. I think that it would have been a very important step in helping girls to consider how to manage their reproductive lives wisely and to delay becoming sexually active until they were old enough to cope with the outcome.
	If any girl stood on the corner of the street with a collecting tin, shook it, and said "I might be going to have a baby because I've got careless sexual habits, will you contribute towards looking after it?", how many people do hon. Members think would put money voluntarily into that collecting tin? Girls have to be taught real-life sex education in schools so that they know that if they become pregnant they will be left with the responsibility of that child. They may or may not know who the father is, and the extended families of the two young parents should be taking responsibility for that baby. Too often, the girl is on her own at a tender age. She has not finished her education and she is not equipped for work. She is barely equipped to look after herself, let alone a baby, but she is left with that huge responsibility. Her employment prospects are set back for years, and her further education prospects are set back for many years, until the child is old enough and she can pick up her life again. These are very important points to consider, because the incidence of unplanned pregnancy in this country is shamefully high. A lot of talent is wasted because women are diverted into bringing up children when they are far too young and before they are ready to do so.
	Employers should be aware that women with children are a very good deal in the workplace, because they are all multi-taskers. Any woman with several children and a job who runs a home will do a million things every day. She will get out of bed in the morning and get herself ready, then make sure that the children are having their showers and cleaning their teeth. She will put out all the clean clothes that they need, and then make their breakfast. She will make sure that they have all the cookery equipment, sports gear and everything else that they need to take to school. She will give them their breakfast, and possibly even prepare a casserole and put it into the oven so that it can cook all day while she is out. She will take the dog for a walk and the children to school, and then she will go to work.
	When she is at work, a woman will switch off. She will take her domestic brain out and put her working brain in and do her job for the rest of the day. When the day is over, she will probably do some food shopping on the way home, then she will welcome the children home, give them their dinner and help them with their homework.
	It is like being on a treadmill, but women can do all those things. They can do half a dozen things at the same time, and all their skills are transferable. They are immensely valuable in the workplace, but women do not sell themselves aggressively enough so that employers realise what multi-taskers they are.
	The debate is about supporting women through the economic downturn and in the future. The best support that we can provide now is to enable women—and especially those running homes and families—to make every pound do the work of two. There is a great talent in that, and anyone who has experienced difficult times when money has been tight will know how to cut a halfpenny in half. We need to look to the older generation, as they remember the post-war years when everything was in short supply. They know how to cut the cost of living.
	The older generation has a wealth of information and knowledge about such matters. Young people brought up in the days of plenty and the throwaway economy, when everything could be replaced and there was never a shortage of money, may never have had to economise in their entire lives. They could tap into the wisdom of older people because, suddenly, they are having to go through an enormous culture change in their lives. Now, they are short of money and they need to keep their homes and families going. They should look to the older generation, because the oldest people in our communities can give them a huge amount of information, help and advice about how money can be saved.
	We also need to make sure that young women get individual advice about finding employment and retraining. We should use the innovation and expertise available in the private and voluntary sectors to help women get into the workplace. In many families, the husband is the main breadwinner. If he loses his job, the wife will have to try to get back into work. However, she will need help: women returners are often low on confidence and do not understand what they have to offer. They need help and retraining so that they can present themselves to employers as the very valuable employees that they will be—reliable, multi-tasking, and of enormous value to any organisation.

Mark Harper: This has been a very good debate, and there have been a large number of contributions from both sides of the House; there were six from Conservative colleagues, and six from Labour Back Benchers. I am sorry for the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats; there were no other Liberal Democrat contributions. It is a shame that her colleagues, both men and women, did not feel that the debate was as important as she said it was in her speech.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) mentioned, the title of the debate has changed since it was announced by the Leader of the House last week. Then, it was "supporting women and families through the downturn and building a strong and fair economy for the future". Mention of families has been expunged from the motion in the Order Paper today, as has mention of a "strong and fair economy". It is fairly clear from the economic record that the Government are clearly not doing very well in building a strong economy—quite the reverse.  [Interruption.] The Leader of the House says that that is a cheap point, but it is a fair one. She changed the motion, so it is fair to point out the words that she left out. It is also fair to point out that "fair" is missing. She referred to, and was questioned about, the equality Bill; I will come to the issue of the timing of that Bill later. That Bill seems to be slipping, which is unfortunate.
	I am glad that the right hon. and learned Lady has rejoined us in the Chamber. When I was researching for this debate, I noticed that she and I have something in common—well, almost; I do not want to worry her too much. I notice that she gained her BA in politics at the university of York. My researcher also gained a BA in politics, and if he is as successful in blazing a trail in politics on our side as she is on hers, the name Malcolm Morton might be heard in future.
	This is an important debate, and the title refers to support for women for the future. After her mauling in the press this morning, I thought that the right hon. and learned Lady would like to know, as we are talking about support for women in the future, that she has a new fan in the  Evening Standard. Its columnist Viv Groskop said today:
	"desperate times call for desperate measures. And after years of steering clear of Harman, I'm coming round to thinking she should be our leader...Seriously, in light of the ongoing meltdown her good points are multiplying scarily quickly."
	The headline is, "We need a woman at the top—bring on Hattie now", so there is some good news for the right hon. and learned Lady.
	Yesterday, when the right hon. and learned Lady addressed the House while standing in for the Prime Minister, she was challenged by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) about some important economic measures that the Government should bring forward—measures that will be crucial to whether women are affected seriously by the recession. She did not mention very many of them in her speech. I suspect that that is mainly because, as my right hon. Friend highlighted yesterday, they are yet to happen. He highlighted the Government's loan guarantee scheme, which was announced in January, was due to be launched on 1 March, and is still not operational. The jobs recruitment scheme has been delayed until April. The mortgage support scheme, which was mentioned by some Labour Members, if not the right hon. and learned Lady, is still being worked out with the banks. The guarantee scheme for asset bank securities is not starting until April, and the deal with Lloyds bank is still to be worked out.
	Given the seriousness of the economic situation, which nobody disputes, we need urgent action. Some of those measures need to be implemented more quickly if we are to see economic progress for the future. That is why I was pleased that in her speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead set out some of the key concerns of women and families. Unlike the right hon. and learned Lady, my right hon. Friend mentioned women pensioners, who often rely on savings and will not have welcomed the cut in interest rates today.
	My right hon. Friend also set out a number of positive proposals for action—our proposal on the national loan guarantee scheme, proposals for a community learning fund, proposals on compulsory pay audits for companies found guilty of breaking the law, a proposal for increasing flexible working, and some positive proposals to end violence against women.
	I was pleased that my right hon. Friend mentioned the contribution of women to our armed forces. I had the great pleasure last weekend of visiting my local regiment, the 1st Battalion The Rifles in Afghanistan. They are doing an excellent job serving our nation and, sadly, have had some dreadful losses of personnel over the past few weeks. I met some of the women serving in our armed forces in Afghanistan, and I am glad to add my words of support to those of my right hon. Friend for all those who serve Her Majesty in uniform.
	As is traditional in winding-up speeches, I shall run through the contributions to the debate. As I said, there were 12, so I shall not be able to dwell on them to the extent that they deserve. Briefly, we heard an important contribution from the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), who spoke about child care and the worries that families have about debt. She was drawn into an interesting interchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) about the respective records of different Governments. After that debate, matters were put straight.
	The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, made a comprehensive and wide-ranging speech. She pointed out that when the Government introduce the equality Bill, they may have a tough job persuading people, particularly on the subject of age discrimination. A worrying finding in the report from the Government Equalities Office was that a significant number of people, both men and women, think it right in a recession to get rid of older workers. By "older", they mean over 55. Attitudes will have to change when we debate the equality Bill.
	The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) gave us an historical overview of the suffragette movement. She mentioned the importance of being equipped with skills in the recession, and referred to the problem of domestic violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) brought an international dimension to the debate, which was fitting as we approach international women's day.
	I know that the Solicitor-General will not forgive me if I do not remind her of my hon. Friend's mention of the Baroness Thatcher. As we approach the 30th anniversary of her election, I am sure the Solicitor-General will celebrate the fact of a woman Prime Minister, even if she cannot bring herself to agree with any of her policies. It was a groundbreaking moment when Mrs. Thatcher was elected—the first and still the only female Prime Minister of our country.
	The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) said that yesterday she met the youngest female MP in the Afghan Parliament, again bringing an international dimension to the debate, and mentioned some specific issues near to her constituency and in the Principality of Wales, which was very welcome.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove noted that the recession will impact on everybody, mentioning pensioners and reminding us of the Prime Minister's responsibility for the system of financial regulation that has so failed us. However, I would pick her up on one thing. In referring to the tripartite system of financial regulation, she said: "If you give a job to three people to do, it will be done badly." That may be true in general, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is of course not true in the case of Deputy Speakers, where three people do the job incredibly well.
	The hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) referred to different aspects of issues affecting women, particularly the genetic screening of women from areas where first-cousin marriages are common, and mentioned the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007, which has done so much to protect a number of vulnerable women.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) referred to the national minimum wage and its positive impact on women, especially poorer women at the bottom of the income scale. He then gave what he himself said was a radical and alternative view in advocating a sharp increase in the national minimum wage: a radical and alternative view from a radical and alternative Member of Parliament, if I may say so.
	The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) referred to research by the Government Equalities Office, to child care, and to domestic violence. She was on less certain ground when trying to defend the noble Lord Mandelson, with whom she did not seem to be entirely in agreement as regards his views on not extending maternity leave. I remind her that he speaks for the Government, so if she is supporting the Government, she will of course support the views of Lord Mandelson.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) talked about why women feel particularly vulnerable. She pointed out that they are often expected to be the main carer, urged all parties to take that matter seriously, and emphasised the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition by saying that he takes family-friendly working policies very seriously and has put them at the heart of our economic strategy.

Mark Harper: If the hon. Lady checks her facts, she will find that that is not true. I will not go into detail, because I have only a minute left.
	My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) talked about the importance of affordable housing. My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) mentioned the very important matter of young women taking control of their reproductive lives so that they have the best chance in life.
	The equality Bill was mentioned once or twice, and it would be helpful if the Solicitor-General could confirm the timing. We were all expecting it by the end of this month, but we were told several times that we would see it in a couple of months or in a few months. Will she confirm whether it will be introduced in March, April, May, June, or even before the summer recess? It is worth remembering that building a fair economy for the future is very important. There is a huge burden of equality legislation on the statute book, and the advantage of a Bill that simplifies and streamlines that legislation will be to make life easier for business in this recession, rather than more difficult.

Vera Baird: I will repeat what I have just said, so that the hon. Lady can understand that I do not insult her at all. I say that in her championship of a Prime Minister who showed her womanly qualities by taking milk from kids, but whom we in the north simply call job snatcher, the hon. Lady made a most mellifluous contribution to Labour's next election manifesto.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) rightly said that the pay gap is complex. Nobody tells girls who choose caring jobs, for instance, that they are going to get paid less. It is complex indeed. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), a woman who is praised from all parts of the House, showed her undoubted sympathy for all the people in her constituency, and her understanding of the diverse communities there, from which she does not come, is quite remarkable. Her courage in supporting the victims of unacceptable cultural impacts, from those communities and her own, make her a stalwart. We shall miss her.
	The hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) made two points. Suffice it to say that I will be his messenger to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on both.
	My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) made telling points, including her own observations on the paucity of what the Opposition have to say about women. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), in so far as she focused on the issues, made a balanced and helpful contribution.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South set out a realistic picture of the impact of recession on ordinary people—compare and contrast with those who cannot manage on 60 grand a year.
	The hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) made a point about the stress that women face, and the important point that we must protect and support action in this recession not only in cash but in kind.
	The hon. Member for Upminster talked about the woman's world as being making breakfast, popping a casserole into the oven and then popping out to do her secretarial job. In that somewhat 1950s picture, she missed out the time to make up prettily and the time for hubby to come home.
	We need an organised careers structure for women who have children. We still behave as though they were an unexpected oddity in a world of work in which the norm is 40 hours a week for 40 weeks a year for 40 years. It is not acceptable that mothers are expected to pick up the dregs of what is regarded as second-level work that can be delegated to part-timers. That is where a massive amount of the pay gap is derived—only low-skilled work is available, even to the most highly skilled mothers. No less than 50 per cent. of women who work part-time work below their own skill level, which is not acceptable. We have done a great deal on flexible working for women who are in work, but returners face a wall of nine-to-five jobs with no right to ask for anything different.
	We have done a great deal to try to solve those problems and moved the agenda far forward. It is none the less clear that there is a lot still to do. I wish that I had not been reduced to political adversity in this argument, because— [Interruption.]

Schools (Liverpool)

Howard Stoate: Thomas Carlyle once said that
	"work is the grand cure of all maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind".
	How right he was. Work, or, more specifically, getting a job, maintaining a job, and, most important of all, deriving a sense of personal fulfilment and satisfaction from that job, is the key to good health. Men's health outcomes, in particular, owe much to the type of work that they do and the amount of time and energy that they devote to it. It defines who they are and their place in the world. Even today, men spend far more time in the workplace during their lives than women do. Not only are there more men employed than women—some 1.5 million more, in fact—but there are twice as many men in full-time work as women. Men also work much more overtime than women, and 30 per cent. of men work more than 45 hours a week, compared with 10 per cent. of women. Furthermore, because of the traditional differential in the retirement age, men still tend to work to a greater age than women.
	When we consider the extent to which work continues to dominate the lives of men, it is little wonder that they make much less use of primary health care provision than women. The fact that access to most primary care services is still predicated on where people live, rather than on where they work, means that it is much more difficult for men to gain access to help when they need it. That is not the only reason why we have this gender gap, as there is a whole range of cultural and psycho-social reasons why take-up is lower among men, but the difficulty men face in simply getting to a GP practice is undoubtedly part of the problem.
	There is good evidence to show that if we provide health services in environments that are more accessible to men, such as in the workplace, men do take advantage of them. For example, Royal Mail, 85 per cent. of whose work force is male, introduced a health awareness programme in 2004 as part of a wider scheme to reduce employee absenteeism. The scheme succeeded in reducing employee absenteeism from 7 per cent. to 5 per cent. between January 2004 and May 2007—equivalent to putting an extra 3,600 employees in work. A report by the London School of Economics calculated that if the 13 sectors of the economy with the highest absence rates followed Royal Mail's lead, the resultant reduction in absenteeism would be worth £1.45 billion to the UK economy.
	The Work Fit programme developed by BT is another example of an effective workplace-based health initiative aimed at men. BT, 75 per cent. of whose employees are male, commissioned the Men's Health Forum to develop a lifestyle improvement programme that would appeal particularly to men. The resulting Work Fit programme was a 16-week scheme delivered mostly online, which focused on nutrition and physical activity. More than 16,000 staff, three quarters of whom were male, registered to participate in the scheme, and 6,000 were successfully tracked over the course of that 16-week programme. Each participant lost an average of 2.3 kg during the programme and a six-month follow-up found that most had managed to sustain the progress they had made.
	The success of those initiatives underlines the value of workplace-based health schemes. The NHS needs to work closely alongside employers, unions and industry associations to ensure that such schemes are more widely disseminated across the country. There is no reason why many of the services provided in traditional NHS settings could not be delivered just as well in workplace settings. Basic health checks, screening services and some routine GP appointments are among the services that could easily be provided in the workplace.
	Not only do workplace-based schemes produce tangible results in terms of improved health and higher productivity, they also help the NHS to meet its obligation under the gender Equality Act 2006 to ensure that services are delivered more equitably between men and women. The value of gender-sensitive approaches in enhancing the effectiveness of workplace-based health initiatives is also acknowledged in Dame Carol Black's review of the health of the working-age population, "Working for a healthier tomorrow".
	It is clear from the Department of Health's willingness to give its backing to last year's national men's health week, which looked at health in the workplace, that the Government appreciate the vital importance of this issue. The mini-manual produced for men at work that was funded by the Government is evidence of that, but we need to do more. The Men's Health Forum is organising, with Department of Health support, an expert symposium on 18 March to look at those issues and I am told that Carol Black, the national director for health and work, will be speaking at it. I hope that the Minister will look seriously at the outcomes and recommendations for policy, practice and research that arise from this event.
	The centre for men's health at Leeds Metropolitan university has already identified a need for research to look at what we know, what we do not know and what we need to know regarding the promotion of men's health in the workplace. I would like to see the Department of Health work closely with the Men's Health Forum, which I am pleased to see is now a strategic partner, on developing this agenda.
	I would like to move on to the importance of good work for a man. I have focused so far on the role of the workplace as a means of helping men to gain better access to health services and information, but I want to return now to the issue I started with—namely, the relationship between work itself and the health outcomes of men.
	We know now that the quality of employment has a direct and quantifiable impact on people's health, life expectancy and life chances. Arguably, that applies even more to men than women, given the residual importance our culture continues to attach to the role of the man as a successful breadwinner. Yet while it is clear that unemployment has a particularly corrosive effect on the physical and mental health of men, there is now equally strong evidence to show that having a good job is considerably better than having a bad job as far as men's health is concerned.
	Poor-quality work among men is associated with low levels of well-being, a higher incidence of physical or mental illness, low levels of self-esteem and a sense of powerlessness. In the Greek myth, Sisyphus was punished by the gods for his deceit by being condemned to work without purpose. His punishment was to roll a large boulder up the same hill, without purpose or object, for eternity. Every time he reached the top, the boulder rolled back down the hill and he had to start all over again. As Albert Camus said, the gods
	"had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour."
	As humans we need purpose and meaning in our lives, and work, along with family, is the primary vehicle through which meaning is created. To quote Kant:
	"If a man has done much he is more contented after his labours than if he had done nothing whatever; for by work he has set his powers in motion".
	We are much better off—socially, physically and spiritually—when we have work that offers us a chance to find an outlet for our creative spark and also provides us with a degree of stability and rootedness.
	The famous Whitehall study of British civil servants, carried out by Michael Marmot, emphasised that point. He found that people in those grades that do the most routine work experience the most rapid clogging of the arteries. Between the ages of 40 and 64, those in the bottom grade were four times more likely to die than those at the top.
	In a recent book, "The Craftsman", Richard Sennett, the sociologist, underlined the importance of "craftsmanship" in human society. The craft process, whereby we select our materials and then manipulate them, using our skill and experience to create something of tangible value, is a necessary human experience, and without it we are lost. The craft process lies at the heart of all "good work".
	What do I mean when I talk about "good work"? According to a recent Work Foundation publication by David Coats and Rohit Lekhi, "good work" can be said to embrace the following features: employment security; work that is not characterised by monotony and repetition; autonomy, control and task discretion; a balance between the efforts that workers make and the rewards that they receive; whether the workers have the skills they need to cope with the demands pressure; observance of the basic principles of procedural justice; and strong workplace relationships.
	In some of those areas, we have made very good progress over the past 12 years. Nevertheless, it is clear that we still lag behind many of our European neighbours in a number of areas. Take the measure of job quality, for instance: according to a recent Eurobarometer study, the UK has marginally more low-quality employment than France and Germany, and significantly more than the Nordic countries.
	Nearly 70 per cent. of jobs in Denmark are deemed to be of high quality, compared with only 42 per cent. in the UK. The Danish experience shows just what can be done when reasonably tough employment laws, high-quality active labour market programmes and high benefits are combined. That creates an inclusive labour market with decent work for the overwhelming majority of employees, which results, unsurprisingly, in a happier and healthier population.
	On some measures, though, there is evidence to show that we have actually gone backwards rather than forwards over the last 20 years. Job control is one such example. According to a recent Economic and Social Research Council skills survey, there was a marked decline in job control between 1992 and 2006 across all occupational groups. Those in skilled trades were only moderately affected, but associate professionals, those in "elementary" jobs and personal service workers experienced a sharp reduction in task discretion.
	The employees surveyed reported that their efforts are increasingly subject to external sources of control—specifically, closer supervision, more intense pressure from customers, more peer pressure from colleagues, a closer relationship between pay and performance, and more intrusive performance management systems, among others.
	The growing use of information technology-based management systems, for example, means that the working practices and outputs of many employees are far more closely monitored than they were a generation ago. They are obliged to work in very structured fashions, which leaves little room for flexibility or discretion and is also inherently more stressful. It is unlikely that they are receiving any additional pay by way of compensation.
	As many as half of all employees are now affected by information and communications technology-based systems of that kind—everyone from employees connected to electronic point-of-sales systems at retail checkouts and call centre operators to clerical staff operating computers, and professionals and managers, who use networked computing services, including e-mails, intranets and the internet.
	While many employers may congratulate themselves on introducing technology that allows them to monitor and manage the performance of their employees in such an accurate and cost-effective fashion, it is clear that most employees are not quite so appreciative. The consequence of a decline in job control and task discretion is that employees no longer feel that they are active participants in their organisations. Their sense of commitment diminishes, they feel less responsible for the consequences of their actions and they feel increasingly dissatisfied. That is not only bad for the health of the business, but even worse for the health of the employees.
	Senior executives often talk about the stresses involved in holding down a powerful, high-profile job. Stress of that kind is nothing, however, compared with the stress involved in holding down a post where the person has no, or next to no, control over the work they do. The security guard in the entrance lobby is far more likely to have a heart attack than the so-called highly stressed executive who sweeps past him every morning.
	Yes, lifestyle factors play a part, but the studies that have controlled for those factors point to job-specific factors such as job control and task discretion and the culture of the organisation as being the major causal factors. It is clear that until we tackle the inequalities in the pay, status, autonomy and job security of different groups of workers in so many British workplaces, we shall have no chance of ironing out the marked social gradient in health that is now apparent among men in Britain.
	The 2005 European Working Conditions Survey tells us that many of our neighbours have been more successful than us in enabling employees to maintain a sense of job control and satisfaction. Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden all perform substantially better than we do in terms of employee autonomy in the workplace. I believe that there are two main reasons why those countries perform so well. First, union density is very high in all of them. A strong union presence helps to neutralise attempts by employers to impose more controls on the working practices of their employees. Even if those attempts are not always successful, the fact that employees know that they have the union on their side, fighting their corner, makes them feel more in control, which is almost as important.
	The second reason is that all those countries have invested heavily in workplace reform programmes. All their Governments have understood the importance of trying to improve, or at least protect, the quality of its citizens' working lives, and have invested heavily in programmes that focus on job enrichment or on improving companies' productivity or organisational performance. It is reasonable to suppose that that investment has helped to keep those countries ahead of their EU competitors in terms of the extent of the autonomy that exists in their workplaces. It has probably played at least some part in helping to improve overall health outcomes and minimise health inequalities among the working population.
	What measures should our country be taking to improve its outcomes? One thing that we ought to be doing is ensuring that employees' rights that are already on the statute book are being properly implemented. Earlier this year, the TUC estimated that at least 1.5 million employees were not receiving the national minimum wage. A national minimum wage helpline has now been set up which allows employees to make complaints about their treatment, but more needs to be done to boost awareness of that service among people in lower-paid occupations, and to make them confident enough to use it.
	Many employees are reluctant to take action even when they know that they are being exploited, either because they are worried about how their employer will react or because they do not think that action would be taken in any event. Perhaps the best way of addressing that fear is to continue to promote the advantages, or more specifically the protections, that union membership provides. As well as investing in enforcement measures, we need to consider what practical steps can be taken to help employers to improve the job quality of their employees.
	One possibility is the establishment of a "workplace innovation challenge fund" to provide pump-priming funding for employers who are interested in introducing programmes of job enrichment, empowerment initiatives aimed at enhancing autonomy, and new forms of work organisation. We could also insist that companies provide more detailed information about health and safety performance—including the measures that they have taken to improve job quality among employees—in their annual reports. That would help to focus corporate Britain's attention on the importance of job quality as a means of helping to improve the health, the well-being and, ultimately, the performance of employees. Given that the best-performing companies are invariably those that invest most in improving job quality, other companies, seeing their success, would be encouraged to follow their lead. In time, a focus on job quality could be seen as an essential feature in the blueprint of a successful organisation.
	I also support the current move to end the British opt-out from the European Union working time directive. Among the EU 15, only Spain has a higher percentage of workers than Britain who work more than 48 hours a week. I am convinced that bringing Britain into line with the rest of Europe would have an appreciable impact on health outcomes. After all, there is compelling evidence to suggest that excessive working time can have an adverse impact on both physical and mental health, and can expose employees to the higher risk of workplace accidents.
	Some people will doubt whether a time when Britain is in the middle of an economic downturn is a good time at which to be focusing on job quality issues, but I believe that now is precisely the right time to be thinking about such issues. Investing in people will ensure not only that corporate Britain remains competitive in the downturn, but that we are well placed to flourish and grow in better times ahead.
	Noel Coward once said:
	"Work is much more fun than fun."
	As a famous, well-paid actor and writer who had almost total job control, he was well placed to make such a remark. It is very unlikely that we shall ever see a time when the majority of the working population would also, without hesitation, describe their work as consisting entirely of fun; but if we can make men's experience of work more positive, so that work becomes an opportunity for personal growth and fulfilment, we shall have taken a huge stride forward in terms of improving their sense of health and well-being, and consequently their health outcomes.
	I realise that many of the issues that I have raised are beyond the strict remit of my hon. Friend the Minister. However, I believe that, as the lead Department in the tackling of health inequalities, the Department of Health has a vital role to play in making the case across Whitehall for more concerted action to help to improve men's and women's experience of work. By focusing on that, the Government have the opportunity to make a real dent in the level of inequality in this country.

Ann Keen: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: that is part of the reason why people who have difficult jobs and difficult work situations, and who cannot necessarily be paid if they take time off work, need longer opening sessions. Early detection of some conditions can even mean the difference between living or dying from that disease. One reason why men do not go to the doctor may be that they are reluctant to take time off work. Workplace-based health programmes may therefore help them to overcome some of those barriers.
	Unhealthy lifestyles may be another reason why men live less healthy lives than women. Some conditions, such as sexually transmitted infections, can be treated very simply and quickly, and of course may prevent partners from becoming infected, too. The embarrassment of such diseases is being overcome by the initiatives taken in many clinics to respect privacy and dignity.
	Men often have less healthy diets and higher alcohol and drug intake. They are involved in more accidents and are more likely to commit suicide.
	The Department of Health does an enormous amount to try to get the right messages out about having a healthier lifestyle, eating better and exercising more, so that everyone has the opportunity for health and well-being. However, we know that men respond better to different forms of information and health messages. Linking health messages to football is one sure way of getting many men's attention. Only last week the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), spoke at an event about "premier health". The premier league, using the power of football, is engaging children and young people in participation in sport and in intervention programmes that address key social issues. It is well known that many men and boys have a real passion for football. I do not forget my sisters—women have that passion, too, but the sport is attended more by men and young boys. Football can engage, motivate and inspire people to achieve health. The Football Foundation is closely involved with us.
	Of course, merely watching football may not always be the best thing for men's health. At times, I have experienced my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Alan Keen) watching football and I am not sure it has the best effect on his health—but that is because he supports Middlesbrough.
	The Department works in partnership with other key players in men's health, particularly the Men's Health Forum. That essential partnership working ensures that we have expert input and that we reach far more men than if we were working alone. In 2008, men's health week focused on work and health, and the forum received more than £50,000 from the Department towards that initiative. The Health and Safety Executive also worked with the forum to produce a booklet, "Men and Work," which covers topics ranging from healthier eating to coping with stress. Men's health week 2009 is focused on men's access to health care services, based on the findings from a project that the forum carried out for the Department of Health in 2008.
	The current direction of travel towards more individualised care, as set out in the next stage review, should help men to feel in control of their health. It could be another way of making them come forward. There are many other examples of the Department of Health working to improve the health of men indirectly or directly. The Yorkshire and Humber region has made men's health a priority and is working with the Men's Health Forum and Leeds metropolitan university, which has the world's first professor of men's health.
	As we have seen, men are much more likely to take their own life than women, and are often reluctant to seek help when in distress. The national suicide prevention strategy in England was launched in 2002 with the aim of supporting the target to reduce the death rate from suicide and undetermined injury by at least a fifth by 2010. In addition, we contributed towards production of the Haynes "Brain Manual" and "Brain Mini Manual," which the Men's Health Forum has published for men of all ages who are interested in becoming more aware of mental health issues.
	A relatively new health trainer programme is having success in getting men to engage with their health and, most important, change their unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. Health trainers often live and work in the communities they serve, so they are seen as understanding what it is like to live there and what the problems in those communities might be. They know all the local services and can signpost people to them, and work across a variety of places in order to be easily accessible. When people go to see a health trainer, they choose what they want to work on and agree what they can manage. Nobody tells them what to do, and men, like all of us, respond well to that—there are no lectures, but real partnership working is encouraged.
	In summary, the Department has chosen to improve men's health by ensuring that different health policies take into account their needs, including trying to improve their working conditions, encouraging them to have healthier lifestyles and urging them to come forward for help earlier. As my hon. Friend made clear throughout his speech, however, this is also about addressing inequalities. The Department of Health cannot do that alone. It depends on where people live and the job they do—if they have a job—and the money they earn, and that is the responsibility of all of us in this House.
	I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on such an important subject, and for all the work he does on health in Parliament and outside.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.